


Threads

by Ludi_Ling



Category: Ages of Apocalypse (Marvel Crossover Event), Alternate Universe - Human - Fandom, Exiles (Marvel), Marvel (House of M), Marvel 616, Mutant X (Comics), The Matrix (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - House of M, Alternate Universe - The Matrix Fusion, Alternate Universe - X-Men Fusion, Complete, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Marvel Universe, Metafiction, Multiverse, Mutant X (Comic), One True Pairing, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Parallel Universes, Romance, Sexual Content, Soulmates, Star-crossed, True Love, Vampires, Writers, timestream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-05-14
Updated: 2011-01-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 17:55:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 94,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2590808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ludi_Ling/pseuds/Ludi_Ling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tales of Rogue and Gambit from alterniverse continuities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hierloom

**Author's Note:**

> Note on Threads: Threads is my little baby that's been developing for quite some time now. Each 'Thread' is based on an alternate universe and can be read as a separate story, or as a continuation from the 'Thread' that preceded it. Each 'Thread' is linked to the one after and before it by a single motif, image, theme, or event. At least, that's how I'm planning it to be. So this is kind of a collection of stories that bear some relation to one another, but that are also stories in their own right. Just a warning that some of the chapters/stories are going to be quite long. Because even when I write shorts, I tend to be long-winded. But I guess you know that already...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One Sunday morning in Valle Soleada, Rogue and Gambit recall the moment they first met one another. Set in the 616-Universe (the main Marvel Universe).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is based on the events of the Muir Island Saga, from waaaay back in X-Men #278-280 and X-Factor #69-70. I've kind of taken liberties with the story, but hey, that's artistic licence for yah! Enjoy!

_'Time present and time past,_

_Are both perhaps present in time future,_

_And time future contained in time past.'_

* * *

Languid mornings, Sundays: for a change – just for a change – it is he who brings her a cup of coffee, instead of she. He puts up with it all – bad cooking, bad tempers and sass, because he can't quite brew coffee the way she can, because he can't quite replicate the taste of the coffee in the mug she places on his bedside table every weekday morning before running off to work, the mug which he reaches out for from under the covers after she is gone, the thing that somehow makes up for her absence. Saturdays, of course, are different; hopefully, they'll wake up together, fumble around a bit in bed, before lazily assembling for out-of-hours school, lessons only taught in the kitchen. He'll try to teach her to cook, and she'll try to teach him to make real coffee; but then, by Sunday morning, he'll have forgotten all over again, and she'll joke mercilessly about it; and next week, inevitably, it'd be back to the drawing board, and he'd have to start all over again.

This is a ritual of the house; the mug of coffee is some quaint sacrifice for every unsettled quarrel, substitute for every 'sorry' left unsaid.

Gathered under covers that she wears with all the elegance of a Grecian goddess, Rogue pretends to sleep under the balmy light of the California sun, knowing full well that it is a pretence he is never taken in by. It is only when he presses his lips lightly against her shoulder blade that she stirs, softly, as if awoken by love's first kiss (it's an act she loves to play – first kisses have always been a sore subject with her, you see), and asks:

"Didja bring me mah oh-so-wonderful cup o' coffee, sugah?"

He ignores her sarcastic tone, leans over and places the mug proudly on the bedside table. Just as always that odd sense of anticipation floods him, that ridiculous feeling that he always gets every Sunday morning, ten O'clock on the dot without fail. It's that familiar nail-biting trepidation, the one that always says: is this offering going to be rejected, or is it going to be accepted? In reality, it doesn't matter a bit. She'll drink it all up anyway, after making a couple of sly jibes. It's the only way she can get back at him for the endless hell he gave her after she almost poisoned him when they'd first got here.  _That_  event had earned her a ban from entering the kitchen under pain of death for all of four days. And even if she  _will_  drink his coffee, he can always be certain she'll have something scathing to say about it as payback.

She makes a small sound of satisfaction, reaches out one small hand (it never ceases to intrigue him how a hand as small as that could pack such a wallop) and runs an index finger over the side of the mug, as if to make sure that it's really there. Then she surprises him by controverting all said rules of the house, withdrawing her arm and snuggling back down under the covers.

"Ain't y' gonna drink dat,  _chere_?" he asks her in consternation.

"In a minute, Remy," she murmurs back huskily in that just-woken-up drawl he finds so sexy. "Ah'm still tired."

"Dat's what de coffee's for, sweet," he replies patiently, still feeling oddly flustered at this mysterious turn of events. Usually she'd be up already, awaiting his arrival plus libations, a sarcastic little smile on her lips, all ready for the usual little exchange of banter. That the routine has been disrupted leaves him faintly apprehensive. Slowly he lies down on the bed, spoons gently against her over the covers.

"You been oversleepin' today,  _chere_ ," he notes, prodding gently for an explanation.

"Not really," she says. "Ah've just been thinkin'."

"'Bout what?" he asks, curious as to what revelation could possibly upset their Sunday morning.

She stirs, reaches out, finds his arm, drapes it over and across her waist.

"Whether, if Ah didn't drink that cup o' coffee just for one day, the world would turn over and onto it's head, an' things would turn out differently for us," she slurs.

"I…see," he returns after a moment. He isn't used to anything philosophical coming from between her lips. That, too, is mildly disturbing.

"No y' don't." She swivels under the covers, turns to face him, her expression showing that, once again, she knows him far too well for comfort. "Y' ever watch that film, 'Slidin' Doors'?"

"Y'know I have. I watched it wit' you,  _p'tit_." He pauses, scrutinising her green eyes. She likes to poach him with her eyes. It's something he can't often resist; though he can pretend to, if he tries. "Several times," he adds as an afterthought, just by way of letting her know that if she forced him to watch it again… …

"Then y' know what Ah mean," she smiles, not taking the bait. "What if not drinkin' that cup o' coffee right now meant the difference b'tween life or death?"

He stifles a laugh, not quite succeeding, letting the sound come out as something of a bark. He is too used to stifling his laughter; smiles he has no difficulty with, but laughter is something different. It annoys her. She always tells him he doesn't laugh half as much as he ought to. One of her other ritualistic little pastimes is to tickle him just to force a bit of laughter out of him. He senses he'll get no such foreplay today.

"Y'all can laugh all y' like, sugah," she frowns. "But Ah'm bein' serious." She rolls over again, silently fuming.  _Here we go_ , he thinks, sighing inwardly.

"You talkin' 'bout parallel universes,  _chere_?" he asks, wondering where this line of conversation is leading, while trying to signal to her that the white flag's been raised.

"Uh-huh." She finds his hand again, links it with her own, reassuring him that the apology's been accepted. "Do y' reckon there's a different 'us' for every choice we've ever made in our lives?"

"Mebbe," he replies, not quite knowing what to make of all this talk.

"An' that maybe, here an' now, in this world… this is the only reality in which we're t'gether?" she continues wistfully. "That we're jus' some kinda crazy anomaly?"

"You really t'ink so?" he queries, resting his chin pensively against her shoulder. The suggestion, and that it had come from her, had hurt him. "Funny dat: I always thought it was all dem other realities dat were de anomalies, not dis one."

"How can you be so sure?"

He can't be so sure. So he doesn't answer. Instead he finds his gaze wandering to the cup of coffee on the bedside table, the steam rising from the contents within, only to dissipate into the air. So many molecules…disappearing? Turning invisible? A long silence follows.

"D'you remember when we first met?" she questions, her voice sounding sleepy again.

"Of course," he replies shortly.

She pauses a long while, her index finger rubbing gently against the joint of his own.

"It's like a train," she murmurs, as if to herself – he isn't quite sure what she's referring to. "Leadin' from one stop t' the next… Ah often wonder how things woulda turned out, if Ah had let y' touch me, if Ah had run up that hill after yah and… …"

She trails off, as if to say:  _but it doesn't matter now_.

Still, he remembers.

Together they watch the steam rise from the cup, steady, slow, before it disappears, disappears into thin air.

* * *

Have you ever walked down a certain road in life, and got the feeling you were being led?

Is reality born from fate, or from nothing more than pure chance?

That morning on Muir Island, six or seven years before, Remy LeBeau had come to a conclusion. He was going to kiss the woman of his dreams.

And he wasn't particularly thinking about fate or chance at that all incisive moment either. (Though admittedly, dealing in chance was one of his favourite pastimes.) This little dilemma had been playing on his mind for the past couple of weeks, and now that he finally had a chance to settle it, he wasn't going to back off now. Nope – events recently hadn't been conducive to romancing of any kind. First meeting this eccentric Professor  _homme_  and a whole bunch of old-school X-Men, half of whom he'd never even known had existed (and most of whom, he might add, he didn't entirely feel he fit in with. But that was par for the course, as usual). Then getting possessed by the Shadow King, seeing Muir Island almost being destroyed into little bits, and  _then_  meeting  _another_  whole bunch of these crazy X-people… Yup – this was the first morning an iota of peace had finally descended over the shattered island and he could finally do what he'd been meaning to do these past few weeks. He was anticipating that by this evening he'd be taking a trip to the mainland, taking a stroll through town with a  _femme_  on his arm, wining and dining her, and perhaps afterwards even something more…

He found that he was grinning as he turned the corridor and came close to his destination. This was the most excitement he'd had in ages. He couldn't afford to slip up. He got the impression that he only had one shot with this woman, and if he messed up, he'd be messing up big time.

With that thought in mind he came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the white-walled corridor, wavered hesitantly outside the door to the medical room, smoothed his fingers through his hair absently.  _Come off it, LeBeau, y' know de hair looks fine whichever way y' wear it. An' you'd be lookin' suave even if you was wearin' de proverbial bin liner. You just worried dat she's gonna turn you down, face it. Merde! You ain't never been so nervous 'bout a femme before! What de hell is up wit' you? Jus' get in dat room and work y' mojo like y' always do! Y' know it's never failed…_

Sometimes he was too clever at cajoling for his own good. He could end up talking himself in and out of things even when he knew it was a bad idea. This, however, was a good idea. A very good idea. He pushed gently on the door handle, threw the door open theatrically.

"Stormy!" he cried in dramatic greeting.

Ororo Munroe was sifting through the trash that one end of the medical room had become. She looked up only passingly as Remy sidled into the room and closed the door softly behind him.

"Would you stop calling me that?" she asked him for the umpteenth time since she had met him.

"Sorry." He held up his hands to thin air, silently casting an appreciative stare at her shapely butt as she leaned forward to pry a certain something out from beneath the rubble. For once he actually thought the hideous blue and yellow spandex looked good. Grinning, he took a step forward.

"Stormy," he began.

"Gambit," she interrupted warningly.

"Ororo," he corrected himself quickly. "I was wonderin'."

"What?" She pulled out a twisted piece of metal, tossed it aside impatiently.

"Maybe you an' I could take a trip down to de mainland t'day, neh?"

She paused, straightened, wiped the sweat from her forehead.

"As you can see, I'm a little preoccupied right now," she rejoined pointedly.

"Can't it wait?"

She turned, glared at him.

"Gambit, the home of my friends has nearly been destroyed. The Professor has, once again, lost the use of his legs. Moira needs a vital piece of equipment in order to help him, a piece of equipment that is currently located underneath this pile of rubble." She shot him a marked look, eyebrow raised. "In short: no, it cannot wait."

She turned, began poking in amongst the debris once more. Remy winced, feeling thoroughly chastised by her barbed words.

"Den howzabout I lend you a hand?" he asked in a somewhat more conciliatory manner.

"I would appreciate that," she nodded, not looking at him.

He walked over to stand beside her, mentally calculating the distance between them, before reaching out a hand and making the tactical manoeuvre of placing it tentatively on her waist. Tentative?! Geez, what the hell was up with him? It wasn't like she was going to bite him or anything. At the uncertain touch she froze, but said nothing. That emboldened him. Taking advantage of her silence he slid his arm all the way round her waist, pulled her up into his arms. She played along, all trace of her previous irritation gone, and looked up into his face with an impishly remonstrative glance.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, very low, very soft, a tone he recognised all too well.

"Lendin' you a hand," he replied audaciously and just as softly.

"Gambit, you're incorrigible," she shot at him.

"So?"

"You know how wrong this seems, don't you? Until recently, I was still just a child to you. [1]"

"Only in body,  _chere_. Never in mind."

He leaned in to kiss her, and their lips were just about to touch when they were interrupted by the sound of the door opening noisily. They broke apart quickly, but not quite quick enough for whoever had just entered the room to know the nature of what had been about to happen between them.

Remy threw a flustered glance over towards the doorway, inwardly cursing. Framed inside the entrance was one of those X-Men he already knew he held nothing in common with.

Forge.

_Damn!_

"Ororo," the Cheyenne warrior began after a long silence during which he looked back and forth between the two with suddenly wary eyes. "We need to talk."

Remy looked over at Storm cautiously. It was not hard for him to catch the faintest of blushes underneath her dignified composure, nor to see a thinly veiled embarrassment at what they had almost been caught doing. Again he felt himself cursing. There was tension in the air so thick you could've sliced it. And the way those two were looking at each other – Remy had seen it before, whenever they happened to occupy the same room. So there was unfinished business between them, that much was obvious. And if they were going to clear the air now, so much the better, as far as  _he_  was concerned.

"Of course, Forge," she returned at last, her voice calm. It was not lost on Remy that she had invited the older man in where she had so brusquely turned himself aside before. His optimism took a sudden and drastic turn downhill.

_Dammit!_

Storm was giving him a look, a look that told him to leave the two of them alone and not to even  _think_  about trying anything on. He sighed, raised his hands, and walked out the door, closing it softly behind him. For a minute he stood outside the room, hesitant. A lifetime of reading women gave him the impression that anything further happening between him and Storm was fairly much doomed. He muttered a few choice oaths under his breath, only narrowly refraining from sending his boot into the wall. What to do now?

"Gumbo!"

Remy turned to see Wolverine advancing from the other end of the corridor, stalking along with that now familiar predatory gait he possessed, like some great big burly old hunter. Remy scowled. It hadn't been long since he'd made the Canadian's acquaintance, and already there was no love lost between them.

"Logan," he returned gruffly, glowering.

"I got a job for you," the feral man replied, stopping in front of him and ignoring the less than cordial tone of his greeting.

"Why do I get de feelin' I shouldn't be jumpin' for joy?"

"Save it, Cajun. I ain't in the mood to tussle with you." The older man lit up a cigar, deliberately ignoring a no-smoking sign that had been plastered on the door, and took in a drag with relish. "Things in this place are gettin' crazier than usual and I don't like it. There's more of us X-Men than anyone in their right mind would want to keep track of. The Professor's callin' a meetin'. Somethin' about splittin' us up into different teams."

"Den let's hope we ain't on de same team,  _homme_ ," Remy threw in acidly.

Wolverine grunted, but otherwise ignored the comment.

"We're missin' a man," he continued. "Rogue's gone AWOL. She ain't in the building. Hank said he saw her headin' down for the beach earlier on. She could've been takin' a trip up to the mainland."

"An' what you wan' me to do 'bout it?" Remy asked petulantly.

"Go out an' find her. I got things to settle up round here."

"Why can't Hank do it?"

"He's seein' t' Charlie. Look, I'd ask 'Ro, but she's otherwise occupied. And much as I hate it, I'm askin' you t' help me out here. You're the only one who seems to be bummin' around this place doin' nothin'. Time you got off your lazy ass and did somethin' t' help us fer a change, seein' as you're an 'X-Man' an' all."

"I'm beginnin' to wonder why I signed up for dis crazy ride in de first place," Remy grumbled, crossing his arms peevishly.

"You're only jus' beginnin'? Kid, I've been wonderin' the same 'bout you from the start." Logan gave a grimace of a smile, chewed pensively on his cigar. "Look, I ain't gonna ask you again. An' if you make me, I ain't gonna ask nice."

"So? You wan' another beatin' like I gave you in de Danger Room de other week? [2]" Remy replied hotly. "You wan' me to call y' out, here an' now?"

Logan glowered, jabbing his finger into the Cajun thief's chest. "Listen here, punk," he growled. "The day I answer t'  _you_  is the day I'm in my final death throes. An' lemme tell you, this mutant's real  _hard_  to kill. Y' hear me?"

Remy looked down at the twitching hand poised just above his heart, gave a slow grimace.

"I hear y'," he said at last, pushing Wolverine's hand away. The last thing he wanted was one of those claws sticking in his chest. "So how do I find dis Rogue?"

"Ain't hard," Logan replied, blowing out smoke. "She's got this skunk stripe in her hair." He made a vague gesture with his hand. "An' a tongue like whiplash. You watch yerself, Gumbo."

"I know de  _femme_ ," Remy replied. He'd caught sight of her around the island several times since he'd got here. As far as he could tell, she liked to keep herself to herself.

"Then get yer ass into gear and find her," Logan retorted gruffly, looking down at his watch. "The meetin' starts at twelve hundred hours. Y' got yerself thirty minutes t' find the girl. An' mind you don't try anythin' funny with her. Her an' me, we go a long way back. Understand?"

"Yeah. I touch her, I got you to answer to."

The corner of Logan's mouth twitched. He seemed to find something funny in the statement, but he made no further reply, and, seeing the matter as having been concluded, walked off in the general direction of the bar.  _Things to settle up, eh?_  Remy thought caustically.  _Probably a pint o' beer, knowin' dat big ol' lug._

He stood a while, trying to make out what was being said on the other end of the door, but was unable to hear a sound. The building had been made to withstand a full-scale attack (not that that had really made a difference when the Shadow King had paid himself a visit). The walls and doors were made so as to be virtually impossible to blast through, let alone hear through.

He passed a sigh, ran a hand through his hair again, shook his head. Thirty minutes.

_Okay Logan, we play dis stupid game o' yours. I'll find your precious femme for you._

He hated Muir Island. He'd never seen seas that were so perpetually rough and tempestuous, nor skies that were so perpetually dull. And this accursed, acrid, salty wind was enough to make him seasick. He couldn't even keep a cigarette lit in this weather.

Ororo loved the island, and she loved this weather. She found the greatest pleasure in riding the turbulent gales, in watching the white-flecked tides dash upon the rocks, in matching the skill of her flight to that of the seagulls that perched high upon the cliffs. It was something he both admired and loathed, because he couldn't understand it. Now, walking down towards the beach that Hank had last seen his quarry heading for, he pulled his trenchcoat tight against him, fighting to keep the wind at bay, teeth clenched desperately to an already bent and battered cigarette. Could the day get any worse? He thought it considerably unlikely. He prayed this 'Rogue' wasn't going to give him as hard a time as Logan had implied she would.

He stamped down to the other end of the island, treading coarse, rough grass, the kind that  _would_  grow out here. The ground, which had been fairly level, suddenly made a sharp dip, and he found himself half-stumbling down the relatively steep incline towards the beach. And surprise-surprise, it wasn't even a  _nice_  beach. All rocks and pebbles and gritty sand. He couldn't wait to get back to the US. Somehow he sensed that they wouldn't be making a visit to the picturesque Edinburgh anytime soon, not with all this talk of meetings and teams and such. So get him back to New York already! Or better still, to his beloved New Orleans!

He sighed wistfully at the thought. Why not go back to New Orleans after all? Why not turn his back on all this X-Men foolishness and do what he did best – thieve and steal and womanise? He wasn't making a difference here anyway. Nobody liked him. Only Storm had time for him, and he wasn't so sure he wanted to face her anymore, not after what had just happened between them. Why not just leave, right here, right now?

He knew why. He had lied when he had told Wolverine that he wondered why he had joined this outfit in the first place. He knew why. The reason was crazy; it was something he knew he shouldn't,  _wouldn't_  have cared about if he were standing where he had been just one or two short years ago. One fateful decision, one fateful bargain made, and in the blink of an eye, all previous sensibilities he had held had been stripped from him. Joining the X-Men was something he thought he'd never have to make.

Reparation. Amends. Atonement.

He stepped onto the pebbly dune, halted, considering his options. The familiar sense of regret surged within him. Could he turn back? Could he simply just walk away? God knew he'd tried to do it before, and in the end he'd found himself just running circles…

The gulls were cawing overhead, causing an infernal racket. It grated on his nerves like sandpaper. He grit his teeth violently.

"Shuddup!" he suddenly cried out in utter frustration. Stooping, he picked up a small rock, charged it, and sent it flying up into the air amidst the circling birds. The stone exploded with a loud bang, spraying out shrapnel everywhere, sending the frightened gulls cawing even more boisterously than before as they scattered. Remy followed them with his eyes as they fled back towards the safety of their nests down the other end of the beach.

 _Dat sure told dem_ , he thought with grim satisfaction as he watched them disappear behind the rocks. It was only then that he saw the small figure out on the sand, not more than a couple of hundred yards away, partly hidden by an alcove formed of the heavily layered bulwark that was the cliffs. The figure appeared to be exercising, punching and kicking thin air. From afar, he could just about make out the streak of white in her hair.

Bingo. Looked like he'd finally found the Rogue. And in record time as well, he thought with a smug grin. He could probably even get back in time to catch Wolvie at the bar.

Feeling pleased with himself, he swaggered down the beach towards her, noting the violence of her movements as she battled some unseen foe, her back towards him. No doubt about it, the  _femme_  was working off  _something_. And the way she was going at it, he was glad he wasn't on the receiving end of those punches.

"Hey!" he called out, once he was standing only a few metres away from her. "You de Rogue? Logan wants y' back at Dr. McTaggert's place! Dere's gonna be some kinda meetin' or other!"

She stopped fighting the invisible enemy but did not turn to face him, her fists still clenched.

"Ah'm busy," she returned coldly. "Leave me alone."

He wasn't sure what surprised him more – the acid tone of her voice, or the Southern accent. It reminded him even more acutely of home.

"Didn' you hear my explosion?" he asked, wondering why she was taking this all so calmly. The bang he'd created would've certainly been close enough for her to hear; not to mention his shouting at the seagulls.

"Ah hear a lot of explosions," she replied shortly. "Y'all want me t' give yah a round of applause or somethin'?"

Ouch. Logan hadn't been joking about the whiplash thing.

"Dey all be waitin' for you,  _chere_ ," he replied, thinking it best if he changed the subject rapidly. "An' if I keep Logan waitin' for y' den…"

" _Chere_?" she interrupted with cold humour, ignoring pretty much everything he'd said. "What bayou did Storm fish  _you_  out from, swamp rat?"

She turned, maybe out of curiosity, maybe out of the same yearning for home that he felt. And when she turned, the first thing he noticed were those eyes. Big and beautiful and a brilliant green. He'd seen her around, sure, but he'd never noticed her eyes before…  _Why_  hadn't he noticed her eyes before? Looking into them, it was like the first time he'd met her. And the way she was staring back at him, like it was her first time too… She'd seen him before, hadn't she? He could've sworn only yesterday they'd cast one another a fleeting, uninterested glance in the corridor. Or had they…?

He found himself staring at her in a way he didn't often stare at women. Stupidly.

"So  _you're_  the good-for-nuthin' Cajun everyone's been talkin' 'bout," she said at last, breaking the confused silence that had so suddenly sprung and lingered between them. That's what it was – confusion. A corner of her mouth was upturned, showing some conciliatory attempt at humour. He shook himself.

 _Whoa! What de_ hell _happened jus' den…?_

"I guess my reputation precedes me," he half-joked, feeling the words come out awkwardly, as if he hadn't poured enough of the intended charm into the sentence, as if he'd neglected to do so at the last minute out of an inexplicable uncertainty as to whether it was appropriate. Nevertheless she smiled, the wind whipping cinnamon curls about her face. She smiled!  _Dieu!_   _Look at dat smile!_

"Maybe," she conceded, pursing up her lips in order to stifle the smile, but not quite succeeding. "You're the one who blows things up."

"I couldn't have described it better myself," he grinned, giving a little bow, easing into the conversation. The sense of strangeness was beginning to leave him, but not quite. "So, what's your power den, 'Rogue'?"

"Well," she began, crossing her arms, again attempting to cover her amusement with severity but failing abysmally once more. He wished she'd stop doing that. She was so much more attractive when she smiled. "Ah can fly…"

"Like 'Ro?" he asked, a little too quickly. He felt a bit odd now, saying her name, but he couldn't rightly say why.

"No, not like 'Ro. She flies by creatin' a vortex of wind that carries her. Ah fly… under mah own power."

He sensed a hesitation in her words.

"You fly naturally?"

"Not…exactly…"

She made no further attempt at an elaboration. He didn't understand it, but from the tone of her voice he thought it wise not to push the matter.

"So," he began after an awkward silence. "What's your name? Your real name?" He paused, finally finding it in him to smile charmingly. "Gambit finds it hard t' believe dat people round here call a sweet t'ing like you de 'Rogue'."

"Mah name…" She was hesitant, almost confused, her eyes wandering from his – he knew it wasn't from embarrassment but something more. Then she smiled wryly and met his gaze again without flinching. "Ah'll tell you mah name if you tell me yours."

Touché. She'd already heard that his name was his secret, the tip of an iceberg she would only discover years later and under less fortuitous circumstances. What his new family knew of him was only ten percent of the truth, the part of him that he held above water. Like an island. Like this godforsaken, barren little backwater. He shuddered involuntarily.

"I guess we've met a stalemate," he remarked ironically.

"It'd seem so," she replied, smiling so that those green eyes lit up her face again. He found himself staring again, grinning inanely as if her smile had infected him. He'd finally decided it. She was the most goddamn beautiful woman he'd ever met. He was already beginning to formulate a plan with which to get her to ditch this whole meeting business and go with him for a trip to the mainland. He was desperate to get off this island, but not as much as he was eager to find out what it was like to kiss those gorgeous red lips...

"Looks like you were havin' some work-out," he commented, taking a step closer and nodding towards the scuff marks in the sand where she had kicked up dirt.

"Jus' practicin'," she said, throwing a playful punch in his direction. "Why? You wanna join meh?"

That wasn't the proposition he'd been anticipating. At least, not in the way she'd meant it.

"Uh… Mebbe some other time. We should be gettin' back." He eyed her gloved hands, thinking that she didn't like to show much flesh and what a shame that was. "An' besides, I don't t'ink I'd like t' be on de other side of dose fists."

"Damn straight, sugah," she answered, throwing another few punches into mid-air, the term of endearment coming out naturally – so much so that she didn't even realise she'd used it. "Ah'm invulnerable. Not nothin' can cut meh." She paused, turned a wide smile towards him. "Betcha y' didn' know that Ah can deflect bullets!"

"Really?" he asked. "Den what's dis?"

He reached out to touch her neck, seeing that there was a cut there – probably a piece of the shrapnel from his blast had grazed her, and she hadn't even noticed. But when she saw what he was doing she suddenly whisked away from him – he was surprised to see both shock and fear on her face as she backed off quickly.

"What's de matter?" he asked, confused, and not a little startled by her abrupt withdrawal.

"You can't touch meh!" she cried, levelling a hard glare at him.

Why the hell not? What was with the sudden display of shyness? She'd felt it too after all, hadn't she? That weird…something? He'd seen it on her face when she'd looked at him, he was certain of it.

" _Chere_ , I wasn't tryin' nothin' funny…" he began again, bemused by the expression on her face, so suddenly hard and cold, closing off that little chink of tenderness she'd somehow allowed him to see. Nevertheless, his words seemed to pacify her; the harshness had gone out of her eyes, and her countenance was different… … Resigned? Such a strange look.

"No, it's not that," she explained quickly, quietly. "It's mah power… Ah leech people of  _their_  powers, an' their memories. An' if Ah hold on long enough, they could pass out or even die. Ah jus' didn't wantcha to get hurt, is all."

The revelation hit him harder than he could have expected. He was almost as stunned at his own reaction as he was by the admission that had caused it. He was understood now why she preferred to keep herself to herself, why she was so brash, so bad-tempered, so stand-offish. He had never been a man to give and receive anything easily; the only thing he was able to treat with such flippancy was touch. What she experienced as an everyday reality he could only comprehend of as some vague and all-encompassing nightmare. He felt pity for her, and something more that he couldn't explain. He knew she would accept neither.

"Oh," he said, finally. There was nothing more he could say without sounding crass.  _So much for dat trip t' de mainland. So much for de winin' and dinin'. So much for…_

His silent attempts to make light of the situation made him feel somehow worse. He shifted his feet, looked away nervously, back towards the building. She watched him shuffle, her expression suddenly questing. If he had known what she had been through; that she was angry with her foster-mother, Raven Darkholme, for having seemingly abandoned her; that she was pining for Erik Magnus Lensherr because he was the first  _grown_  man she had ever touched with her bare hands and with some semblance of passion inside of her; that he had broken her heart so utterly when he had refused to lay down his law of violence for her… If Remy had known that all she wanted at that very moment was for him, a stranger, to put his arms round her and tell her that everything was going to be okay, would things have turned out differently?

Maybe.

As it was he cleared his throat; he looked back at her with a sudden distance in his eyes and said:

"I should be gettin' back."

"Yeah," she agreed.

He half-turned, looked back at her again; now he was grinning widely as if nothing had happened.

"Make sure y' come back, 'kay,  _chere_? Wolvie, he be worried 'bout you, an' if y' don't turn up t' dis meetin', y' won't be seein' dis Cajun round for much longer."

"Okay," she nodded, returning his smile, but only half-heartedly.

He nodded, and began to make his way up the hill again, trenchcoat flapping in the wind. She stared after him a long while, considering. That morning she'd come down to the beach in a tumult, unable to work off the frustration and rage that had been building up in her ever since she had got here. But now she felt uncertain, her emotions now in some strange state of flux. This man – Gambit, is that what he'd called himself? – why hadn't she told him to push off and mind his own business? Why had she opened up to him so much? Why had she felt so upset when he'd reached out to touch her?

He'd reached out to touch her.

Remembering, she raised her fingers to her neck and felt her throat tentatively. Lowering her hand she saw that there was blood on her fingertips. Blood!

He'd cut her. How had he managed to cut her? She couldn't remember the last time anything had made her bleed. Was it because she'd let her guard down? Was it because she'd been so engrossed in her venting session? Was it because she hadn't been paying attention, and had somehow subconsciously switched  _off_  her powers? Was it because of  _him_?

Could she do the same with touch?

She looked up at his receding figure, a wild torrent of hope inexplicably spilling into her heart.

"Wait!" she called; but an unexpected gust of wind rose up, tearing her voice from her mouth and dragging it away, towards the cliffs. He disappeared over the crest of the hill, never once hearing her.

She stopped, brow furrowed, all of a sudden feeling bewildered and deflated. It had to have been a fluke. Just a fluke. A crazy coincidence. A one-off. She'd never be able to control her power. It was too difficult. Too traumatic even to begin to try. And if she ran up there and faced him, what would she do? What would she say? The recollection that she'd even  _thought_  that he might put his arms around her and comfort her made her sick with embarrassment. And loneliness. Loneliness. Dammit! Did she need someone, anyone, that much? Could she believe in something more than loneliness just because of one stupid, coincidental cut?

She opened her hand, looked down into her gloved palm once more.

Blood.

She should have known then that a legacy of bleeding had begun.

* * *

_Next: A Gothic romance from the Mutant X universe (kind of)..._

[1] When Gambit and Storm first met, Storm had been regressed to the body of a child by a very weird character called Nanny.

[2] Uncanny X-Men #273. The origin of 'bang, you dead'. Heh heh…


	2. The Ties That Bind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Rogue travels to the heart of the corrupt Clan LeBeau with one purpose in mind - revenge. Sometimes love ends before it has even begun. A dark, Gothic romance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is based very loosely on the Mutant X (comic) universe; it's more like an alternate universe from the Mutant X universe, I guess. It doesn't really follow any of the stories from that Universe, but has certain characters, names and elements from it. And from here on in most of the other stories, including this one, are going to be rather long. Sorry about that.

Ah! Blood.

Only now, so close to the home and heart of Clan LeBeau, did she shed blood!

The Rogue lifted one hand to her throat, caught the tail-end of the thin trickle on a single fingertip. Under the flashing maelstrom of lightning she studied the bead of crimson liquid, green eyes narrowed. Nothing could cut her; no wound inflicted could cause her to bleed, to shed her life's essence. Only this could. Only this.

Her curse.

Night in Nouveau Orléans hung livid and foreboding over the dilapidated mansion, caught under a dry storm, an indigo sky luminescent with the soundless crack of fluorescent lightning – but no rain. The heavy stench of the swamps mingled with the slumberous scent of the humid night; but one stroke of rain could pierce it, and the arid wasteland would disintegrate. But not this night. This night the summer heat held on as tenuously and fiercely as the fiendish occupants of this old mansion, and she… she was drawn to them; they drew her to them the way they drew the storm to their ghastly abode. She could smell them. She could smell them upon the blood on her fingertips.

In coming here, she had made a fatal gamble – not the gamble of the life-death variety, for either way she was dead, and her curse could not be lifted. And yet, standing before the crumbling castle, she possessed one last meagre chance.

Revenge.

Under the iridescent flash of lightning she made her way up the dusty pathway to the marvellous house, the living mausoleum. No human had passed here for many a year; those that came here did not come of their own volition. Wanderers, vagrants, tramps – these were the unwitting guests of Clan LeBeau. Those that came willingly arrived armed, and with only death in mind – either their own, or that of the Clan. It was the bones of these foolhardy men and women that the Rogue now stepped over, bones that littered the winding driveway, a stark reminder that those who sought to challenge the Clan did so at their own peril. Peril. The Rogue half-smiled. There was no longer any peril in this. She felt herself moving towards her destination as if under the influence of the tides… The full moon hung, pearly white above the crumbling eaves, conspiring to draw her further into the romantic rapture that all these revenants enjoy – the sweet delights of the night, the somnolent, seductive dance of succubae and incubi. She shuddered, momentarily, halting her determined course; the lightest of gasps escaped from her throat, shivered, jangled, fled from between parted red lips… Instinctively, she touched her neck again, only to find it dry of blood – nothing.

As she lowered her hand a small sound from behind her caused her to go very still. For a moment the irresistible pull on her dissipated, and she stood, hand shooting warily to the silver knife at her belt. Another sound; then another. Her highly trained senses caught five assailants, and despite their natural propensity for blending into the dark, she needed no eyes to see them. Watchers – the keepers of this place. Never before had the Rogue trespassed onto the unholy grounds of one of the Clans. She had heard of the Watchers, of their uncanny strength and agility; but she was battle-hardened, and had fought many of their kind – she did not fear them. And with her own well-honed senses she was able to make out the location and stance of all five of them; their formation was tatty, incoherent – she could tell that they had not had to defend the Clan in many long years. That did not surprise her. After the war between the Six (1) and Dracula, few had been left to challenge the dark kindred – the Hunters had grown fewer and fewer, had been slain one by one. She was the Last. The only survivor. It was a long time since she had faced a Clan member, let alone an entire Clan itself. But if there was ever a time to face them, it was now. The Clans had grown slothful and arrogant in their indolence. The stink of their debauchery hung on the very air she now breathed. That she should be walking into it, of her own free will, with only a single knife out of her entire arsenal on her person, with only those insidious memories… all these things made her want to retch. But she swallowed the emotion, forced herself into an artificial calmness.

_The way of the hunter is to accept that he too can be prey…_

She thumbed the knife partway out of its sheath, took in a now level breath.

"I know you are there," she spoke out evenly; her voice, though rich, bore the hallmark of sorrow; shades of grey verging on red and black – this the Watchers recognised more than the words that she spoke. "And I warn you to come no closer. I have not come to fight, but I  _will_  fight you if I must. I come to Clan LeBeau in peace."

The shades hissed – it was a sound she had long grown accustomed to. Laughter.

"You have the stink and the garb of the Hunter." Their voice was no more than a whisper, the susurration of wind on leaves. "Why should we believe the word of one such as you?"

She swallowed. She would not tell them why they should believe her.  _That_  token was for the Head of the Clan himself, and only he. She raised her voice again, throwing all the contempt she could into the words.

"And why should I make my thoughts and desires known to the Watcher? I will say this again: I come in peace, for there is something I crave from your master. I do not wish to fight."

"You come armed," they seethed; this time she knew that they had drawn closer to her in the shadows; their forms licked the frayed edges of the pool of moonlight she stood in, her only cover. "Why should we believe that you do not want to fight?"

The Rogue snorted derisively. "If I had come to fight, would I not have brought with me all the weapons that the Hunters carry? Would I not have slain you were you stand? No – I bring my knife only for my personal protection, not for the Hunt. But if you do not take me to your master, I will have no choice but to end you."

The hissing sounded again. Closer and closer. Already she was standing in the defensive position of the Hunter – feet set, knife raised, head cocked to one side, ears pricked.

"Slay us with one knife?" they goaded. "Our master has no interest in what a human craves of him. You are our prey, Hunter lady. And tonight, we feast on your blood!"

They moved in swiftly, encircling her from all corners. She had to admire them – they were fast, faster than she was accustomed to. But they were out of practice; and she had slain many of their kind on her journey to this place, with only her knife as a weapon. They smelled vampire blood on the silver blade even before she whirled to meet their attack. All the while they had been encroaching upon her, she had been evaluating them, their movements, their posture; it had not been hard to discern the chink in their armour. It was the tightness of their onslaught that was their downfall. She raised the knife, pirouetted with alien speed, with the silver swiftness of a bullet. They did not even have time to scream. In one whirl she had riven their heads clean from their shoulders. The heads thudded to the floor, one, two, three, four, five, and rolled about her feet, hissing. For a moment she thought they were laughing at her. She looked down at the gaping mouths, impassive. No – it was the blood seething from their severed arteries, boiling as it touched the air. The Rogue heaved in a breath, pausing only to wipe the blood from her blade on the hem of her bell-shaped, calf-length skirt.

If this was the best Clan LeBeau had to offer her… …

She resheathed her knife, looked back up towards the black, looming mansion. Lightning cracked across the sky; it was only then that she realised that she had had an audience. A young, raven-haired woman was standing in the ornate, pillared doorway, between the contorted statues of two demented gargoyles. She was dressed in the colour and finery of a Clan aristocrat – purple; a tightly laced bodice and a full, ankle-length skirt, drawn back at the front to reveal the shorter, knee-length kirtle; the long white legs, the dark, embroidered brocade boots wrought with gold. In her velvet-gloved hand she held a long, silver chain. At the other end of the chain was hunched a man, the likes of which the Rogue had never seen before. A feral man, half-naked, his entire body a tangled mess of dark, matted hair, his brown eyes glinting wildly in the moonlight, fixed ravenously upon her upturned face. He was sniffing voraciously – was it after blood that he lusted, or her?

"You are human," the girl spoke after they had exchanged long glances over the driveway. She was younger than the Rogue had first estimated her to be – perhaps sixteen or seventeen. Her voice was still the voice of a girl, lilting, musical, bearing the strange quality that all her kind possessed; yet it belied a hint of womanliness, of that dark, rich huskiness so many mortal men found enthralling. The Rogue shook her head.

"No," she replied in a low voice. "Mutant."

"Oh." The girl's expression was one of enlightenment, of sudden understanding. "Then you are like the Lord of the Clan."

Oh? She had not known that the Lord of Clan LeBeau was a mutant…

"You wish to speak with the Lord of the Clan?" the girl asked when the Rogue did not answer.

"You heard what I said to the Watchers," the Rogue replied, only casting a short glance back over her shoulder towards the blackened, bloody corpses.

"Indeed, I did. You said you came in peace. That there was something you craved from our master."

"You are his daughter," the Rogue stated, suddenly perceiving the truth.

"Yes." There was a hint of pride in the girl's voice as she titled her chin just a notch higher. "I am Raven LeBeau."

"Ah." A slow smile played across the Rogue's scarlet lips.

" _Quoi_?" the girl demanded, both annoyed at the faintly sardonic smile and admiring of the Hunter's composure. The green eyes moved to rest upon the girl's own dark pupils, bitter mirth replaying in the brilliant emerald irises.

"I once knew a woman named Raven," she explained. She was not interested in, nor did she expect any reply from the younger woman. Her gazed shifted to the feral man, who was eyeing her greedily but making no attempt to move from his place hunched at his mistress' side.

"And him?" she asked, nodding in his direction. Raven gave a tinkling laugh.

"Him? That is Logan. He is my pet. He protects me. You think I would come and talk to one such as you without protection? You may have killed the Watchers, but you will not kill Logan. He is a mutant, like you." She looked down indulgently at the gnarled, hairy man sitting obediently beside her. "Nothing can kill him. Nothing can hurt him. And he has the claws of the  _werwulf_. He has killed and maimed many of our kind in the past. But he will not slay me, nor will he slay any of my Clan."

The Rogue's eyes followed the length of the chain that bound slave to mistress. Silver. The touch of silver was like fire on a vampire's skin.

"He is one of your kind?" she asked quickly, her green eyes still upon those of the feral man.

"No," Raven returned nonchalantly. "If that were so, we could not control him. No man or vampire was able to conquer this beast, but my father was able to do so. He gave him the bite, when I was still a child, soon after the Six were destroyed. But he did not drain his life's essence. Logan is merely under his thrall – he will do anything for Clan LeBeau." She tugged at the chain playfully, and Logan whimpered, fawning at her feet. "But the touch of silver pains him, just as it does all vampires," she explained with a slight smile, baring her dainty fangs. "And for this reason, he will do my bidding."

"I see." The Rogue felt a pang of sympathy for this Logan.

_Then he is mutant too, and his fate is the same as mine… If only I could break his bonds…_

"You are a Hunter," Raven spoke conversationally, breaking her train of thought.

"Yes." The Rogue nodded.

"Then you must be the Rogue," she replied.

The Rogue looked up at her sharply.

"How do you know?"

"All the other Hunters are dead. You are the Last. The scourge of all of our kind. And you have the Mark." The Rogue knew what she spoke of – the white streak in her hair. The one that she had worn since birth and that all vampires recognised when they stood against her. Raven passed her another tight-lipped smile. "We of the Clan LeBeau have all heard of you. We heard how you destroyed Clan Rasputin in the wars with the Six. And how you slew Bloodstorm two years ago."

The Rogue stood straighter, allowing the bitter memories to flood back into her consciousness.

"She was a worthy adversary," she rejoined after a moment. She did not know why she was so reluctant to speak of this conquest. Bloodstorm had been one of the pre-eminent vampires; she had even been invited by Dracula himself to be his queen. The lock of snow-white hair the Rogue now kept in her pouch was the only trophy she had retained of that victory. Somehow, vengeance for the death of her friends and comrades had not seemed so sweet when she had stared into the dead, white eyes of the famed and beautiful vampiress. Never before in her life – except perhaps once – had she felt so helpless and alone as that single moment when she had had nothing and no one left.

"No mortal, no mutant, no vampire had ever conquered Bloodstorm before," Raven answered solemnly, as if speaking a last eulogy. "There are many here that fear you – and many that hate you also." She paused, ruminating for a moment. "The night my father heard of Bloodstorm's death, he swore that you would be his most hated foe until the day he died. That if one among us were to slay you, it would be him." Again the girl paused as if to let the words sink into the Rogue. Involuntarily, the Hunter gave an inward shudder, the ominous sense of purpose coming over her again, that terrible premonition... "My father and Ororo were lovers." Raven continued after a moment, by way of explanation. There was no bitterness, no enmity or jealousy in her voice. Of course, the Lord of any Clan was allowed his share of concubines, usually mortal women held under his thrall – but mating between vampires was different; the bonds were ones of respect and honour as well as of love. The Lord of Clan LeBeau already had a wife – Belladonna Boudreaux, the Assassin Queen. But to take a vampiric lover – there was only one instance for that, and that was the ritual bond formed on the battlefield, between the camaraderie of warriors. Many years ago, the Rogue had heard tales of the alliance between the wind-rider Bloodstorm and the Cajun thief called Gambit. Once upon a time, they had been allies of the Six. In the quiet hours they had staunched and healed their battle-wounds by feeding upon one another's blood.  _That_  was the bond of love and honour forged between the warriors of Dracula. In many ways, there was no bond stronger than the sharing of one's lifeblood with another.

Raven's gaze was pensive for a long while, before she suddenly seemed to shake herself from her reverie and returned her dark-eyed glance to the female Hunter.

"This is why," she began again in a low, velvety voice. "It does not matter how you come here, or for what purpose – you come only to your death."

The Rogue said nothing. This was true. Either way, she was doomed. Either way, she was doomed to her end; all she could seek now was what last vestige of her honour she could salvage.

Again, the Lady Raven marvelled at the woman's poise and silence. This was certainly the Rogue, the proud warrior, the legend, the Last. Here was one who must die a death befitting of her status, one who must die at the hands of a Clan Lord, no less. But that she came unflinchingly, and of her own free will… The young Raven could not help but wonder what it was that this Hunter craved of her father.

A small smile curved the blood red lips, only thinly veiling an underlying and intrinsic haughtiness. For now, Raven would wait for her answer. She half-turned in the doorway, the purple velvet train swishing like bat wings upon the dusty threshold. Gently she tugged at Logan's silver chain. The feral man whined, unwilling to tear his searing gaze away from the Rogue.

" _Suivez-moi_ , follow me" she said.

-oOo-

The mansion of Clan LeBeau was still, silent as if untouched by time, as if time contained it, held it to its bosom, caressed it. Once, when the light of day had peered between the thick velvet curtains, this had been a bright and beautiful house where no shadow could chase you. Now the house itself was composed only of shadow; its soporific repose haunted your every step, your every word, so that you felt the house was listening, watching, holding, containing, sucking inward, never again allowing an escape: a black void. Every footfall was muffled by the dusty carpet, once burgundy, now the colour of bloodied ash. Cobwebs hung from the highest places, clinging to high, worm-eaten beams, to the contorted gilt frames of ancient paintings, to the elegant statues of nymphs in Grecian costume. The only source of light was the dimly burning candles that lined the corridor; vampires feared the daylight, but candlelight they loved, and for one reason – that in the candlelight the shades and the wraiths came to play, to entertain with their fleeting inconsistency, with their maddening waltz.

Where the Rogue now stepped she knew no Hunter, no mortal had ever stepped before. No mortal would ever have dared, and no Hunter would ever have allowed himself to be contaminated by an atmosphere so unholy. But this was not the source of the Rogue's sudden sense of disquiet. She felt that the mansion embraced her rather than repelled her; she felt that every step she made was upon air. Again the dread impulsion fell upon her and her breath quickened. Now she walked to the inner sanctum of her doom, and she had no power to stop herself from treading towards it. Her hand trembled as it moved instinctively to her throat…

"I should warn you," Raven spoke, her voice ringing sonorously down the entire length and breadth of the corridor, "that if you should make a move towards me with your knife, Logan will tear you to shreds without hesitation."

"I have no intention of hurting you," the Rogue murmured in reply, glancing up towards the high vaulted ceiling. She could see the shadows and the silhouettes playing up there; the faintest suggestion of their mocking laughter replayed itself along every nerve and fibre of her body, drawing out a sudden coldness within her. She shook herself free of it with an effort.

Beside her, Raven cast her a long penetrating glance; but she said nothing.

At last they reached the old oak doors – the hinges gave with an ominous creak, opening up into the ruinous room. The first thing she sensed was the stale decay of the grand hall; the opulence of ages was stored here, gold, silver, diamond, marble, ancient jewels and antiques, antiquated tomes and treasures beyond wildest dreams. Once upon a time their collector and his ancestors had hoarded these things, cherished them, caressed them with loving hands – but now they had been left to be eaten away by the grime and dust of the centuries – always, always without fail there came a time in a vampire's life where he recognised the baleful void of the many ages that would encompass him, where he would lose interest in all the earthly pleasures life had to offer him. No mortal would ever understand why the dark kindred would leave a palace such as this in such terrible disrepair; but the Rogue understood, or thought she did. For a long while she simply stood in the doorway, scenting the acrid odour of the decomposition of years, of wood-rot, of mothballs, of the sweet, familiar, deathly smell of the vampire. And again the eerie laughter sounded from above; she caught the quick movements of those unearthly shades out of the corner of her eye, the swirling current of shadows as the wraiths swam over the threshold and up towards the further end of the chamber.

To where she knew  _he_  sat.

Behind her, Raven closed the doors to. Then she took a candle from its niche by the wall, lifted it up, said: "Come."

The curtains that lined the hallway were soft, silken, the colour of diluted blood. They stirred at their passing as though under a light breeze; but the Rogue sensed now what she would not have sensed before – that amongst the folds of the long draperies hid the assassins of Clan LeBeau, women to be feared and loathed, concubines all, but ones trained in the arts of their mistress queen. And she felt them ghosting her as she moved past them, following her upon soft and silent feet, the knives loosened at their belts, their stances that of the attack.

The Rogue ignored them, her thoughts suddenly consumed by other, far more sinister notions. She knew that even if these women sprang upon her, even if they should be less superior in combat than she, she would be hard pressed to defeat them. She was drawn to the dais at the far end of the room, drawn to the man that sat there, and the strength of that pull had taken her off guard. She was trembling; however hard she gripped onto the hilt of her knife, she could not stop herself from doing so.

Raven stopped, raised the candle. The whole room ground to a halt. The wraiths, the concubines gave something akin to a collective sigh. The Rogue felt the sound penetrate through her like a jolt of lightning, as if she had been punctured to the very core of her being. Dread expectation gripped her. Her knees almost buckled. She looked up.

At the dais, in the darkest vaults of the shadows, sat the silhouette of the head of Clan LeBeau, the thief once known as Gambit, the man named Remy LeBeau.

"Father, Mother," Raven spoke, her tone self-congratulatory, mocking. "I have brought you a prize."

There was a long pause. Presently, two women stepped out from the shadows at either side of the dais, carrying candles set in tall gilt stands, and laid them at either end of the high seat. At the touch of the firelight the enthroned shadows seemed to come to life, to pour their features into the great chamber, as if the walls had given birth to them and spilled them unlovingly into the world. It was then that the Rogue realised it – that these two were the shades that had followed her progress outside in the corridor, the creatures that had been laughing at her. She quavered, wanting to lower her gaze from that of the couple that sat above her, but she could not.

The man leaned forwards, his face encroaching into the twin circles of light.

That face, the face that had haunted her dreams in so many shapes and forms for so many years… …

The man once known as Gambit perused the face of the female Hunter before him, just as she did him. He had watched her advance through the corridor, noting her clothes, her gait as she walked, her posture, every movement she had made. From her dress, from the Mark, he knew who she was – all here knew who she was. But for the first time since she had arrived, now he was able to lay his eyes upon her own. And it startled him for one split second – though he didn't quite know why – that her eyes were green.

He had never seen green eyes on another before, whether mortal or otherwise. But the image of green eyes was like a memory to him, a memory out of time and place… …

"You are de Rogue," he said at last, resting his chin into his hand, only slight amusement betrayed in his voice, though his face remained still. "De last of de vampire hunters." He paused, dark eyes glittering liquidly. "At last, it seems we meet face to face."

He still had that lilt to his voice – an accent that had long since been banished elsewhere. Even the Rogue herself no longer possessed the accent of her youth. His clung to him like something nostalgic, like an ancient heirloom – something not entirely unfitting in this old and degenerate house. Despite herself, the Rogue felt strange and sudden tears smart her eyes.

"My Lord," she murmured, lowering her head, half out of an instinctive sense of deference, half in an attempt to conceal those tears. Beside him, his wife laughed at the greeting with a voice light and insidious. The Rogue recognised it as the laughter that had haunted her in the passageway. She glanced up at the woman calmly, met the imperious, icy blue gaze of the Assassin Queen with only mild interest. The Rogue had heard many stories of Belladonna Boudreaux, of how she had sacrificed her humanity to be with the man she loved. The golden hair, the azure blue eyes could not but speak of a creature far removed from the vampire; but the timeless expression, the cold stare, the long, patient fingers – these were the marks of the dark kindred. The Rogue could not help but wonder whether she now considered that the price of her sacrifice had been too high.

"Why do you come here?" Remy LeBeau asked after a moment, ignoring his wife's mocking laughter. "You, a Hunter, and de Last – why do you come here into de jaws of your enemy, knowing dat we will not spare you?"  
"You have spared me thus far," she answered quietly, moving her gaze slowly to his.

"Thus far," he repeated, a wry smile playing across his lips. His face suddenly seemed to burst into life. She got the impression that his face was locked in some kind of stasis, even as the faces of Belladonna, and their daughter, Raven, were. It was the face of eternal youth, flawless and fixed outside of time; yet there was something in his features that gave the inexorable notion of humanity, as if one cold winter's day his face had frosted over, yet the essence of his soul still remained underneath the frozen surface. He was handsome, almost too much so – it was something he had always been famed for; the chiselled nose and cheekbones, the firm jaw line, the sensuous lips, and his eyes… Red upon black, a marker of his mutation, but a trait so much more powerful under the natural dark allure of his kind.

The Rogue found herself having to fight just to keep still.

"There is something I crave of you," she muttered at last, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks. For the first time in so many long years, the Rogue blushed!

Behind her, in the shadows, the concubines tittered.

"Of me?" The expression on LeBeau's face was half surprised, half mocking. "And what is dis t'ing you crave?"

"To be your servant," she returned simply, trying to keep the desperation from her voice.

A disquiet fell over the chamber. Only Logan made a sound, whimpering, disconcerted, pawing nervously at his mistress' feet. Raven's look was one of shock. Belladonna's gaze was intent, her blue eyes narrowed. But Remy merely broke into the silence by laughing.

"You! My servant!" he cried. "Do you t'ink me a fool, Hunter lady? Why should I trust you? How do I know you are not here to slay me? You are a vampire hunter, after all. You are de Last. And you are also my greatest foe."

"I have a token of my sincerity," the Rogue replied softly. Not waiting for permission, she untied the pouch at her belt, brought out the lock of hair she had cut from Bloodstorm's corpse two years before. Logan howled when he saw the hair – a long wailing howl that was taken up by the wraiths and the concubines and would have filled any mortal heart with horror. Even the Rogue herself was unsettled by the sound, the wail of mourning she had heard many times before; but she raised her palm, proffering the lock to Remy. The white hairs shimmered like the silvery moon in the gloomy candlelight. Standing there, with the lock in her hand; standing before the head of the Clan, with his retainers lamenting so grievously for one they had lost; she regained a sense of her own power over these hideous creatures, of the terror she could wield over their hearts. But she remained very still, palm outstretched, offering the gift to him.

"How do I know it is not your own hair?" he asked very quietly, once the caterwauling had ended. His face was suddenly ashen.

"Scent it," she replied.

Slowly he rose from his seat and stepped down from the dais to stand before her. The Rogue held her breath, not daring to meet his gaze, feeling the irresistible pull wrench at her stomach again. He reached out for the lock; his fingers brushed her palm and she swallowed a gasp, unable to avert her eyes from his own. She watched as he scented the lock of hair, but as he did so, his eyes were on hers the entire time, regarding her with a curious intensity. She knew from the look that passed across his face that he smelt the fragrance of Bloodstorm, and that he knew she had spoken the truth. Her proposal had intrigued him. He did not understand it, but it intrigued him. And nothing had intrigued him for a very long time; but for that passing and vague recollection of staring into deep, green eyes.

"She speaks de truth," he stated at last. "It is de hair of Bloodstorm." A tremble went through the room, but no words were said. Silently, Remy slipped the lock of hair into the pouch at his own belt. He passed the Rogue one last, lingering look, one that made her knees turn to jelly. Then he turned to his daughter.

"Raven, you and Lila and Sekhmet will take dis woman to de baths and make sure she is properly attired and fed. Den you will bring her to me. Do you understand?"

Raven lowered her eyelids, bending her will to that of her sire. "Yes, father," she returned, but there was a certain distaste to her voice, as if her father's decision had disappointed her. Turning on her heels, she nodded to the two concubines standing at either side of the dais, then looked back at the Rogue, simultaneously pulling at Logan's chain. "Come," she ordered, and this time she made no attempt to hide the disdain from her tone. There was nothing for it but for the Rogue to follow, her mind working rabidly against the lull in her senses.

_There is only one role that the female thrall fulfils for the vampiric master…_

As she left the great hall, she did not see the questioning look that Belladonna Boudreaux passed her husband.

-oOo-

Deep in the recesses of the labyrinthine mansion, the Rogue was fed and cleaned and clothed in the plush yet long-neglected interior of a spacious bathroom. The concubines tended to her wordlessly, all the while watching her ravenously from dark, seemingly vacant eyes – that is, the vapid stare of all vampiric thralls. They knew what she was, and what she was soon to be. The bell-shaped, calf-length skirt, the khaki bodice and jacket, the old, worn leather boots were all discarded for robes of fine, yet timeworn satin. The silver knife, sheathed, was placed aside with her belt and her now empty pouch. Throughout all this, Raven sat aside with Logan squatting dutifully by her side, her eyes narrowed. She did not like the way events were turning – but who was she to question her father's will? Raven had no regard for the concubines; she had as little regard for the mansion, for the graveyard, for the family crypt, for the swamps and the dilapidated gardens. She wanted to run, far away from the Clan. She wanted to run as far as her legs would carry her. And she wanted a glorious and bloody end to this woman, the Last of the Hunters.

But who was she, to question her father's will?

When the Rogue's  _toilette_  was done, Raven led her away again, up a grand staircase hewn from once-burnished oak, down long, grimy corridors all born of the same ilk; crumbling plaster, corroded gilt, paintings some of which she recognised, others which she did not – Matisse, Klimt, Renoir, Monet, all pale shades of their former selves. At last they reached the bedroom; the Rogue was surprised to find that it was light and airy, perfumed with something that struck one only as being  _human_ ; the draperies were thin, diaphanous; the silk sheets of the bed were cool to the touch. But the room itself was empty of any presence but their own.

Raven bid the Rogue sit at the end of the bed; then she bent down beside Logan and lovingly untied the silver chain from about his neck.

"There are things I must attend to," the girl informed her, standing again, placing a gloved hand on the feral man's wiry crown. "But Logan will stay here with you while you wait for my father. I warn you that if you attempt to deceive us, you will answer to his claws. Remember this. He will not hesitate to kill you."

She patted the man fondly, then turned and stalked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her as she did so. Logan squatted on the rug in front of the Rogue, his face expressionless, his eyes assessing. Then, without warning, he unsheathed two sets of bony claws from his knuckles with a distinctive  _snikt_. The Rogue jumped, but managed to keep her composure. She said nothing, only watched the droplets of blood trickle down the man's hoary hands and drip onto the carpet. Since she had bathed, she had felt better; that is, until this moment, when she saw the blood on his hands. The giddiness came over her again. Not now. Not now, when her purpose in coming here was so near… …

"Why are you doing this?" he spoke unexpectedly.

If the Rogue had jumped before, now her sense of shock was even more acute. The voice was gruff, uncertain, more animal than anything else – but the words were human. She gazed at him, appraising the wild eyes carefully, catching only briefly the spark of humanity within them. This man, she sensed, had once been a great man, a powerful man, a strong man, one not to be denied; but she also felt the wisps of a not unfamiliar pain emanating from him, mysteries not even he was able to unlock. And she felt pity for him – not that he would ever have accepted any from her. She knew he was like her. She felt a kinship with him, the kind of bond that could only be born from two lonely, searching souls with nothing left to seek.

"I promise you," she replied quietly, never taking her eyes from his. "When this night is over, you will be free."

His eyes widened as the words sunk in. No further understanding was needed between them.

It was several minutes before Remy appeared. The Rogue had known when he was approaching. She could feel his presence inside her very bones, stronger than she had before in the great hall. She begged silently for the transition not to occur, not now, not when she was so close. Only a little longer; an hour or two was all she needed.

The head of Clan LeBeau entered into the room as he entered all rooms – he spilled himself into the chamber from the shadows of the corridor as if moulded from blackness; it was, strangely, the light that gave him definition. The Rogue stood, meeting the gaze of the man who was now her master. His face was as devoid of emotion as it had been when she had first laid eyes upon him in the hall down below. He wore a simple, maroon-coloured robe, tied at the waist with a gold sash. The movements of his body rippled underneath the gauzy material like water, elegant, perverse. Such grace, such charm these creatures had! And he, he epitomised it all, all the things she loathed and yet loved. He gave her a long penetrating look, then pushed the door wider, turning a meaningful gaze toward Logan. The feral man lowered his head, passing the Rogue a sidelong glance before lumbering obediently out of the room. Once he had left, Remy closed the door and turned back to the Rogue.

"My wife thinks I'm being very foolish," he stated frankly, after a moment.

"It isn't every day that the head of a Clan allows a Hunter into his harem," she answered carefully. He seemed to find something amusing in her statement. A sardonic grin twisted his features. She stared. He hid his fangs well.

"What is your name?" he asked at last. "Your real name?" He moved into the centre of the room as he spoke, passing a mirror as he did so. She noticed that he cast no reflection in the glass. There was a sudden pang in her heart, an odd burning. Her throat constricted.

"I have no name," she answered, her mouth suddenly dry. "I've had no name since I was ten."

He seemed to understand that.

"Den what do people call you? Other den de 'Rogue'?"

She hesitated, feeling suddenly uneasy at his questioning, feeling it to be more intimate than anything else that would follow between them.

"I had a man once. He used to call me…Anna." She forced out the word despite the sudden lump in her throat. She raised her eyes to his again, her voice suddenly accusing. "His name was Erik Lensherr. He was slain by your Clan."

Remy nodded once, impassive. "I remember," he said. "He was a strong one, a worthy mate for one such as you." Then he stroked his chin thoughtfully, saying: "Anna. I do not like dis name. It does not suit you." The smile creased his face as he looked at her again. "Dere is too much balance in it. Balance is a t'ing for vampires, not humans. I t'ink 'Rogue' is de name dat suits you better,  _non_?"

She refrained from answering. Again she felt the subtle intimacy of his words and they angered her, but she could not afford to break the tentative trust between them now. She felt the silver knife in its sheath where she had strapped it to her right thigh before coming here. It had been easy to slip it on, when the concubines were not looking. She could be a master of silence, when she wanted to be. She was not the last Hunter for nothing.

"My daughter says you are a mutant," he questioned her again when she did not answer. "What is your power?"

"I am like you," she replied, feeling an oddness in her own admission. "A vampire." She paused, seeing his quizzical look. "But I leech souls, not blood," she continued. "And what I steal I steal through the touch of my skin."

"And what use would I have for a woman I cannot touch?" he asked directly, as he began circling her, appraising every inch of her.

"It is a power I can control," she replied, clenching her teeth.

"I see." She knew that he knew that she could not bear to absorb a vampire, that if she did so she would become one herself. Besides, her powers were a thing she had not used in many years – she had grown a deep aversion for the traumatic process that absorbing another entailed. She waited until he had halted, having finished his perusal of her; his gaze was now penetrating, all mirth gone from his countenance. "So," he questioned, his voice harsh. "Tell me – why are you  _really_  here?"

So he knew already – or at least, he sensed it. How much he had sensed, she was not certain. She considered fishing for what he knew or presumed to know; but time was of the essence. She must be brief, concise. Nothing superfluous here. An inkling of strength returned to her.

"I am under the thrall of a vampire," she said, meeting his gaze boldly, her voice now assured. His glance was abruptly sharp, alert. She knew she need make no further explanation.

"But you display none of de signs…" he said on a breath, paused, began again. "If dat was de case, den you would not be here. No thrall can leave its master. A Hunter should know dis."

"You do not understand," she replied patiently, averting her eyes again. "I was bitten by this vampire when I was only a child. He did not bite me to enslave me, but rather as sport… And he did not drain me. As a child, I was able to remain human, to retain my humanity. But now the bite begins to take effect… my blood is turning… soon I will be his and I will be human no longer." Any further words she could have spoken were caught on the sudden lump in her throat. She said no more, but would not look at him. He felt a pang of sympathy for her, though he knew not from where it was born. He understood her now, at least that part of her that stood before him. He understood the Rogue, the Hunter.

"What I ask for is your protection," she continued, still looking at the floor, "from this man whom I loathe. I cannot undo what has been done to me, but I can thwart him, at least in part. I offer you my body. In return, all I ask is that you shield me."

She finished, raising her eyelids to steal a furtive glance at him. He returned the look, his dark eyes now narrowed, blazing in the dim candlelight, a frown distorting his lips.  _So dis is why she comes here. Or is it? For a woman such as her to sell her honour like dis… No. Dere is something else here…_

"You ask me to protect you?" he returned at last, disbelieving. "And why should I do dat? Dere are many women I may choose from. And you are my enemy. You are de one who slew my beloved Bloodstorm. She is de one whose wounds I licked on de battlefield. Do you understand de import of such a bond!"

"I do," she replied quietly, lowered her eyelids again. Unexpected tears welled in her eyes. Why did she remember now? Why did the memories haunt her, when she was so close? Of course, it was that closeness that caused her to recall them. She could not help it.

"Den I ask you: what need have I of you?" he questioned, his tone cutting. Something in his voice renewed the sapped strength in her. She raised her moist eyes, the green irises suddenly flaming.

"I am a Hunter," she said, pride ringing in her voice. "The Last. They will say you conquered me, that  _you_  freed the land of my kind once and for all." She halted, and whatever strength she felt she had regained suddenly slipped from her like sand through an hourglass. " _Please_ ," she begged, imploring him with her eyes. "I cannot have people say that I was one of the dark brood from childhood. I cannot have them call me a vampire that took the guise of a Hunter. The Rogue must pass from the world of mortals with honour."

"Dere is no honour in dis," he shook his head, though something in him seemed to have relented. "If you were to speak of honour, you and I would battle now, to de death."

"In truth, I have no honour left," she answered quietly. He stood, stroking his chin reflectively, as if evaluating the statement. When next he spoke, his voice was silky soft.

"Show me de marks," he said.

She knew instinctively what it was he asked for. Lifting her hair from her neck, she bared the puncture marks to him, the ones she had hidden from the world for so long. She was disconcerted and shocked to realise that since he had entered the room, they had begun to bleed again. Her heart pounded in her chest. He would scent her now – he would mark the scent of her blood in his mind, she would be his and all would be lost. All would be lost!

Remy's eyes were on the smooth, white dip of her neck, his gaze greedy. He noticed that she quivered like a candle on fire – why was she trembling so much? She had come of her own free will after all. She knew the ways of the vampire. She knew what they craved most.

"Your wounds are bleeding," he stated neutrally. Her eyes darted to his, confused, bewildered.

"You will not drink of me?" she half gasped.

"Is dat a part of our bargain?" he returned, allowing a grin to light his face.

"Then you accept…?"

"You are very beautiful," he noted, both by way of explanation and by way of compliment. He was amused to see her blush. "I have never seen a woman with green eyes before," he continued, wanting to catch her gaze again, if only to rekindle the strange half-memory within him; but her glance remained averted from his. He grinned at her sudden display of reticence. He sensed it was a long time since she had felt the touch of a lover. "And you have a knife," he added humorously. She stiffened, but he made no move towards her.

"You will not take it?" she asked after a moment, her voice tense.

"Would I unarm my enemy? Is there honour in that?"

Her expression was one of surprise. "Do you consider what passes in the bedchamber a battle?" she asked candidly.

"There is a certain violence to it," he conceded, smiling slyly at her, wanting her reaction. She swallowed hard, partly at the innuendo, partly that her treachery had been discovered. That too amused him. Mortals, he thought, were so easy to read. Without warning he reached out, touching her throat, and she froze – the candle suddenly put out. But he merely caught the drop of blood on his fingertip, trailing the digit upward to gather the rest of the liquid that had pooled in the hollow puncture wound.

"Shall we sign de contract,  _chere_?" he asked softly. Her body remained frozen. Only now, when he had accepted all her terms without question, did she show fear. But she made no move to stop him. And with great care he lifted the bloodied finger to his lips, tasted the red, red liquid she had bled for him.

What does a vampire taste on the blood of another? This is what they taste. They taste memories; they taste the very essence of a mortal's soul. They taste the thing that they have lost – the thing that once made them human. That is why they crave it so. And on  _her_  blood, hetasted the thing that he had lost long ago. The half-memory, of green eyes… No, it was no dream, but real, unadulterated memory. Sudden confusion had gripped him; his glance was sharp as he caught her gaze once more, so sharp that his eyes seemed to leap with crimson flame.

"I have tasted you before," he uttered, a part of him in part unravelled, in part redone. This is a thing vampires dread – stark and blatant remembrance. He took her by the shoulders, suddenly searching her face for something he knew he must one day recognise. "I have met you before."

"No," she replied. She knew the word had come too quickly, too forced. Yet suddenly he seemed uncertain. For she knew the way vampires see things – half their lives are made of dreams, even when they are awake – and when they live long enough, they can no longer tell what is dream and what is memory. And even to her, those bitter memories – now she barely knew whether they, too, were real or not. But still, they both felt it. An invisible bond, too dreadful to speak of, an impulsion too insidious and wicked and unformed to be articulated. This is what they had both feared, and what she had feared most – that the indifference necessary to this contract would be shattered; and now it was shattered, and the glass shards lay scattered on the floor.

But he had not drunk of her. And that was the most important thing. If he had drunk of her, the mere minutes she had left would be gone and all her chance, all her desperate risk, would be wasted.

"Tell me the name of dis man who enslaved you," he finally spoke, his voice low, husky, his hands dropping from her shoulders to the bare skin of her upper arms; the touch of his hands was cold, yet strong, yet tender, a true and fleshly magic. And in this she knew, there was no way of turning back.

"First, I will fulfil my side of the bargain," she whispered back. "Then I will tell you who he is."

No more words. He unclothed her, and she let him do so. It was only when he kissed her in the way mortals kiss one another that she knew the certainty of that bond between them; that she knew that before the night was over, her life would end with one suppressed, brutal, and moreover, decisive recollection.

-oOo-

For a long while afterward, she lay there with her back to him, feeling the lull in her senses, the irresistible tide she was caught inside, that she was unable to escape from. Such transports of delight, such ecstasy did his touch already give her! But a part of the Rogue was still there. And now she knew it to be true – she had no honour left. Only vengeance. And despite the giddying bliss she felt simply lying by his side, the core of her heart was focused upon this one bright, burning thing – vengeance. She had only one course of action now – anything else was inconceivable. She could not break the curse on her, the curse that already pounded through her very veins. But she could seek vengeance for it. Vengeance. Vengeance.

So the mantra went.

His hand touched her back. She almost crumpled – the pull he had on her was that strong. If that bright core had not burnt inside her, she would have turned and fallen back into his arms. No – she had an inner strength. She was the Rogue. And all her strength must now be gathered to speak.

"Rogue?" he said. He spoke the word as if it were her real name. How strange and enthralling! Her heart burned.

"I will tell you who it was that enslaved me," she managed to speak, at last. She was amazed at how different her voice seemed. So withered, so broken. Behind her, he made no reply. But his hand almost felt warm upon her back. She felt it. She was turning… She couldn't turn now!

"He was your father," she continued, forcing each word out so that each syllable struck her own ears with a peculiar, ringing clarity. "Not Jean-Luc, but the man who sired you, who left you to Jean-Luc. He was the one who bit me while I was still a child. I belong to Clan LeBeau. I belong to  _you_."

She felt his hand withdraw, slow, wary, measured. This was the signal, the sign, the all-decisive turning point. And he understood. She knew he understood. Now the ominous purpose had met its reckoning.  _Now_  was the time for honour, for glory.

Quick as the Hunter that she was she rolled over, the silver knife flashing like lightning in her hand. And it was only when she had plunged the blade into his heart that she saw that he had rolled towards her too, and that in his hand his own knife was also poised to strike. He had known! He had known!

A wail took up through the mansion, a horrible thing to hear, the beginning and end of all nightmares – the Rogue felt that it had started within her very self, that it reverberated within her own soul and outward, into the soulless bodies of the phantoms that called this place home and this man, their master.  _Her_  master. But she made not a sound to bewail the loss. And neither did he. He dropped his knife onto the mattress beside him, his red on black eyes gazing into her own green ones as the blood bubbled from his wound and sprayed onto her breast. It was only then that the clarity long bereft from his life returned to him, on the knifepoint of certain death.

"I remember you," he murmured.

She half smiled, wrenched the knife from his breast, turned it towards her own.

"I knew you would," she said.

-oOo-

Even the immortals know this: grief is the destroyer; it is also the healer.

If she had been able to grieve the death of her father, she would have done so, had it not been for the infinite strangeness that had come over her. There she lay, aware of every detail with an odd, brightly-hued clarity – that she lay upon a highly grained wooden floor in the living room of her house in Caldecott Country, Mississippi, staring into the livid face of her father's white and lifeless corpse, the eyeballs rolled back into the eye sockets, the mouth slightly open, caked blood gathered at the wounds on his neck.

This ghastly picture would haunt her for many, many years to come; but not as much as the puncture wounds that she now felt to grace her throat, the ones from which she now felt the blood trickling down with a maddening slowness that threatened to throw her now fevered, hyperactive mind into insanity. Her only thought was this: if only someone could stop the blood from trickling! If only someone could end this endless action of the blood coursing down her neck, this thorn in her side, this splinter in her mind! If only someone could wake her from this dream, from this living unreality that was the vampire's kiss… …!

She was dimly aware of the presence of another in the corner of the room; the faint, stifled monotone of someone weeping, a lone dirge sung for her. The vampire's son thought her as dead as the father. And again, she questioned: was she dead? Was this what it felt like to be dead?

She struggled with the vain hope that she was not. It took an age to move one muscle, an eternity to open her mouth and say:

"P –"

The weeping stopped.

"P-please?"

She heard the muffled thud, thud, thud of the boy crawling across the wooden floor and into the periphery of her blazing vision. At first she was surprised – he did not look like a vampire, but for those eyes, red on black, the kind that vampires did not possess but should have.

He stopped very close to her, put his face within an inch of hers, silent, considering, staring into her green eyes for a very long time. Then he said: "My father hurt you."

She felt it then; a strange emotion, a mingling of hate and gratitude, that he was both the son and her comforter. For since he had spoken the unbearable clarity had dulled somewhat.

"Am Ah dead?" she asked at last.

"No," he answered shortly. "My father didn't drain you, he only tasted you. In time, de strangeness will pass."

Both knew the unspoken – that vampires could not recall the innocence of childhood, that the taste of a child was something forbidden and feared amongst them. Even in him, in the boy vampire, she sensed that he was an adult too soon – as, now, was she.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Remy," he replied. It was a kindness, to give her his name. "What's yours?"

"Mah name…"

She paused, confused. Already she had forgotten. He seemed to understand that. He did not press her.

"Here," he said gently, shifting her head into his lap. "I will make amends for what my father did. I will stay wit' you 'til de strangeness has passed."

Then he did a very peculiar thing, something that only in later years she would come to understand. Very slowly, very deliberately, he bent over and licked the blood from the wounds on her young neck, cleaned the cuts for her with the most tender of gestures. And she shuddered, not knowing what it meant, but feeling it; perhaps he did not know what it meant either. Neither would know what it meant until very many years later, when the bond would be broken before it had begun.

Across the room, in mid-action, she caught their reflection in the mirror; their reflection, hideous, malformed, blood curdling – for he cast no image.

She knew then, that this was how it would be.

That he would remain invisible, until the very last hour of the very last day of her life.

-oOo-

* * *

_Next: "Sins of the Father" – Rogue finds herself pregnant, bringing along some sinister implications…_

[1] Alternate versions of the Beast, Iceman, Archangel, Storm, Havok and Madelyne Pryor.


	3. Sins of the Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Gambit really had been the infamous X-Men traitor? And what if he'd left Rogue with more than just one reason to hate him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Acadian in this story is the supposed son of Rogue and Gambit, and he appears in X-Men: 2099 A.D. #26-28, from which I purloined him. So basically, this is from that alternate universe. You may like to know that this is the most rewritten story I've ever done, and I'm still not entirely pleased with it. There was so much more I'd liked to have written, exploring Gambit bringing up his son and so on, but that would've amounted to a novel in itself so I just had to leave it at this. I'm still paranoid about it, but what the hell. I bit off more than I can chew, what can I say?

It's a rare sight – a mutie in post-apocalyptic days, when mutants have been all but purged, or driven into the wilderness like cattle.

He walks in with a seasonal sandstorm, trenchcoat flapping in the breeze, washed up in this dusty, flyblown little mid-western town like the rest of the scum that inevitably finds its way here. Bandit, thief, mutant; undead. He stalks into the bar-cum-brothel, watching the world through eyes of uncomprehending crimson – dreadful purpose in his gaze; he understands nothing else but the unknown goal he has set his heart upon, a mission bequeathed to him, a legacy of madness. There is not a soul that wishes to know what that goal is. He is bound to a ritual not even he can fathom. He sits at the bar, he orders a drink, he asks the same old question he's always asked before:

"Know a man named Essex?"

Anyone who is wise will reply that he does not.

It is with a certain amount of pride that the young mutant named the Acadian – or La Mort, depending on how well you get to know him – tells you that it was his father, the legendary traitor of the X-Men, that had been responsible for that now ancient apocalypse, the one that had wiped out the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and any other superhero outfit you cared to mention. He doesn't care much if you believe him or not; he's long past caring about the living; in telling his stories he merely muses upon his past.

Oh, the Acadian can tell a tale or two. He is, after all, a dead man trapped permanently in the decaying body of a twenty-three-year-old, and he has been for the past sixty odd years. Of all the tales he could tell you, most of them he prefers to keep to himself – the only thing he likes to talk about is his father, the only thing in the world he ever had. His father had never loved him, or held him close; he'd never spoken to the Acadian with tenderness in his voice, nor had he ever called him son. The only real memory the Acadian has of him is of a cold, bitter, broken shell of man, one side of his face scarred by a fire he would never speak of. The Acadian had learnt never to ask what had marred his father's face, not unless he'd wanted a beating. And the Acadian, as most people knew, learned fast, almost inhumanly so. By the time he was five, he could have stolen up behind you and knifed you in the back without you ever seeing his face. By the age of six he'd harnessed his mutant powers to perfection, his preferred weapons being tarot cards. He's a bit fatalistic in that way; and besides, he has something about the pictures on those cards, you can see it in his eyes when he spreads them out on the table, as if they alone could narrate his life's story in a way words cannot. Anyone would tell you it was from the Death card that he'd earned his name –  _La Mort_  – although he himself knows better.

The Acadian had never really been a child. He'd never done the normal things children do; he'd certainly never felt as if he'd been a child. In fact, it was as if he had been born an adult – he had that coldness in him, that calmness, that way of assessing things. Even his father had feared him. But then, as the years had progressed, that fear had turned to a brooding paranoia. As if, in bringing up the son, the father had compounded his crimes. Even at the age of ten, the Acadian had realised the contempt, disgust and even horror that his father felt for him. He had felt nothing the day his father had died; he had known his father would end sooner or later. There were many things the Acadian knew about his father yet never spoke of – death had been implicit on his father's face ever since the day the Acadian had learned to read it. From the very moment he had been born, his father had been engineering his own death – it had been meticulously planned and preconceived down to the very last detail. His last great master plan. He'd walked to his fate with the stoic aplomb of the gladiator stepping into the arena.

The night before he had left, his father had taken him aside and said to him: "If you ever meet a man named Essex, tell him your father fulfilled his potential."

Essex. The name was the only heirloom his father had ever given him.

Later, he would find out that his father had blown a hole in the desert ten times the size of the Grand Canyon and taken a countless number of superheroes down with him. It was the only time he would ever know fear. After that, he had fended for himself. He didn't miss his father, and he hadn't a single memory of his mother. The only legacy left of her would spill infrequently and with an unassuming reverence from the Acadian's mouth.

Sometimes, if you behaved nice – or if he was about to kill you – he would call you 'sugah'.

-oOo-

"You okay, sugah? You look like you're a million miles away…"

Remy LeBeau blinked, his train of thought disrupted as Rogue sat up in bed beside him, stroking his back with the tentative touch of a child with a strange new plaything. In the full-size mirror across the room, her action replayed itself, mimicking the tightly organized chain of inner reflection that had been repeating itself in his mind ever since they'd both got here.

A million miles away? More like six.

And approximately two and a half hours ago.

The moment he'd flipped the switches on the Xavier Institute's defense systems, while Rogue had been busy putting her shoes on. It'd been one of the simplest betrayals he'd ever had to pull off in his entire life.

So why was he replaying that moment over and over in his head, this single action of flipping a switch, the one action he'd sworn he'd never regret?

"Nothin',  _chere_ ," he murmured in reply. It was probably the thousandth lie he told that evening. "Everythin's okay."

She gave him a half smile in reply, a smile of reassurance, love, understanding, encouragement – God, all of the things he knew he didn't deserve. It was the kind of expression she'd been giving him all evening, killing him with her honesty. It was as if she hadn't known where the night and his sweet-nothings would be leading. One a.m. had found them in this cheap little hotel room, the kind that clandestine couples came to conduct their illicit love affairs, the kind of place that he was accustomed to and that she knew he was accustomed to – yet she said nothing. There, on the creaky old bed with the garish 1960s floral printed duvet, they'd done the thing they'd been wanting to do for over a year now but had never been able to. It had been completely spontaneous and irrational – the fevered intensity of lovers who knew their time would soon be cut short. She'd given herself to him without words, without excuses or reasonings, without even putting up so much as a struggle. Even when he had come into her room that evening, with that phial of serum in his hand, telling her to drink it, that it would allow her to touch him the way she'd always wanted to for only a brief window of time – even then he'd known that the whole thing would be more temporary than he pretended. He'd reasoned with her, begged her not to waste this one chance they had; he'd cajoled her into sleeping with him with declarations of love, with the simple touches she'd been so hungry for, all the while knowing it was nothing more than deception. The entire time she'd stood and listened and hadn't said a word. Not one word. Not even when she'd shown her acceptance with a kiss.

He'd never been one for guilt and yet now he'd never known anything that felt so right or so terribly wrong as this.

He swallowed, looking away. The sight in the mirror was too much for him, their reflection the thing that reminded him that this was something they could never become. Tomorrow morning he would be gone – it was something he had resolved to do the moment he had flipped that switch back in the Xavier Mansion. In that single action he had decided that what they would begin tonight would last no longer than the night remained.

"You sure you're okay?" she asked again, seeing his troubled countenance.

"I'm fine," he replied. More lies. By now, he shouldn't be tensing up every time he made one.

"Fine," she said. Note of finality. Wordlessly she lay back down against the pillows, her hand slipping from his back. He turned to face her.

"You mad at me?" he questioned.

She gazed back up at him a moment, assessing. "No," she replied at last. "Should Ah be?"

He shrugged. "Tomorrow mornin' dat serum will prob'ly have worn off." And that would be the least of her worries, he added to himself, feeling another spike of guilt.

"Ah know," she answered with a small shrug of her own.

"We won't be able t' be like dis t'gether again," he warned her.

"Ah know."

"Den why…?" He paused, unable to finish the sentence.  _Why did you sleep with me?_  Her lack of resistance, her wordlessness, her trust had intrigued and disconcerted him. It was supposed to have been more difficult than this. She was supposed to have inflicted more pain on him so that he wouldn't feel so bad for the pain he would inevitably inflict upon her come tomorrow.

"Why?" She rolled onto her side, her gaze suddenly pensive. "Knowing what it's like to have your arms round someone you love," she explained reflectively, one arm dangling over the edge of the bed, green eyes perusing the pattern of her palm. "The difference between touchin'…an' holdin'."

She did not look at him, as if the admission embarrassed her, as if he could never hope to understand what that difference was. Yet he leaned over towards her, asked her very softly: "D'you love me, Rogue?" She rolled over onto her back then, stared up into his eyes as he brushed a lock of hair away from her face. Funny – selling the X-Men to their deaths was no conflict to him, yet the conflict between wanting her love and hoping against it was the most disturbing and unsettling thing he'd ever known.

"Love yah?" she smirked after a moment, reaching out and running a forefinger over his cheek. "Ah don't even know your name, Cajun."

"An' I don't even know yours," he murmured in reply. "So what?"

When he kissed her she responded with the shyness and unfamiliarity of a schoolgirl, with the hesitant keenness of exploration, for she was a newborn with touch. And when he held her he knew he embraced her too tightly, as if his life depended upon it, as if the world would wither and die should he let go. She closed her eyes, no protestations, as he buried his face in her shoulder, committing the texture, the taste, the scent of her skin to memory. Last chance. Come the morning, he would be gone.

Only when she slept, soft and wistful in his arms, did he cradle her to him and weep silently, weep until he was empty and knew he would never be able to weep again.

At six Remy got up, pulled on his clothes, reached out for the packet of cigarettes lying on the bedside table. It was only then that he saw her looking at him in the mirror, green eyes watchful, veiled with a feigned, almost studied impassiveness. He found himself returning the stare – why was it so much easier to face her mirror image? Again the guilt surged within him. He knew it was useless. He knew  _they_  were useless. He straightened, broke the shared gaze, slipped the cigarettes into his trenchcoat pocket.

"You're leavin'?" she asked at last. He did not look back.

"Yah." It was stating the obvious, but he felt he owed her the simple confirmation. Rogue sensed the half-regret in his voice. So this is it, she thought, the unspoken rule of playing his game of chance. One night, that's all. No questions asked. Better if you'd just feigned sleep, gal. Better to just open your palm and let him go…

"You don't have t' go," she said instead. She'd never known a man so introverted or so cold, but last night… Last night had been some kind of doorway opened, a window into whatever lay within and she had felt it, briefly, somewhere inside the illogical maelstrom of their fervid lovemaking. He, however, passed her a sidelong glance, as though to consider her offer.  _He_  knew he'd opened the door to her – maybe that in itself was enough to scare him away. He grimaced, turned away.

"Trust me,  _chere_ ," he said at last, "By dis time tomorrow, you won't wanna know me."

Perhaps that would be the only honest thing he would ever tell her.

Her questing glance replicated itself in the mirror once as he walked out the door.

Six miles away, at 1407 Graymalkin Lane, an explosion ripped through a mansion on a hill, and anyone that survived would be scavenged like so much fodder by the mutant hunters known as the Marauders.

-oOo-

The Acadian pauses. He flips a tarot card deftly between two, three, four fingers and then back again – it's his own personal nervous tic. Then he places the card back on the table, appraises it –  _Les Amants_. His face contorts into the memory of a grin. He lights a cigarette with the patience of a dead man; time to wait, time to kill, time you don't have. He knows what you're thinking – this is all some embellishment of that famous incident that happened nearly a hundred years ago, the massacre of the X-Men. A massacre instigated by mutantdom's most famous traitor. No one says his name nowadays – it's considered bad luck. 'That Traitor' will do. It makes the Acadian smile with twisted pride. And as for Rouge, well, you reason, didn't she die in the blast?

No. For Rogue was the Acadian's beginning, and sometimes he fancied that he remembered being in the womb, even during those first few months when life is barely a spark of consciousness and nothing more. He was closest to his mother then, a mother that, for two whole months, refused to believe in his existence, who took to waitressing in seedy restaurants and staying in cheap motels and crying herself to sleep every night before giving into the recurring nightmare of the day she had been so cruelly used and betrayed. The closest thing to affection the Acadian has for his mother is the strange affinity he has for the tenacity she must have had in carrying and bearing him.

But apart from that displaced and rather nebulous sense of reverence he has for her, he can say nothing of her, for the moment. The only dead person he can speak for is himself. And his father, who told him all he knew.

With an eerie sigh he slips the Lovers back into his pack and then resumes his story.

-oOo-

Remy LeBeau had been an early starter in most things. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt like a child, and he remembered everything. He'd first killed a man when he was thirteen. Pulling the blade out of bloody guts, he'd vomited; for weeks afterwards he'd been unable to sleep. The second time had killed the nightmares just as the first had started them. Killing never becomes easy. It just becomes bearable. It becomes a re-playable nightmare, a sickening sense of deja-vu that lingers like a faint bitterness on the tongue. Remorse no longer becomes a part of the equation – in Remy's line of business, remorse was the last sentiment of a dead man.

Remy didn't give a shit about the X-Men and he never had. The feeling, as far as he had been able to tell, had been mutual. The X-Men had neither liked nor trusted him. He had positioned himself in their midst simply because it had been his job to do so; from the very beginning Sinister had given him a very specific mission – to infiltrate the X-Men, gain their trust, glean whatever he could from them, and then destroy them from the inside, leaving the bodies to Sinister in order to harvest the genetic material. He'd gone into it willingly. He'd never had a second thought. This was not to say that he liked or trusted Sinister – he never had. If Sinister had not held something over him, he would never have carried out the mission. It was that something, the something that Sinister had withheld from him even after Remy had completed the mission in the Morlock tunnels,[1] that had caused Remy to agree to all Essex's terms, despite better judgement. And he had risked more than he knew in saving Rogue's life; it was not simply a question of adding unnecessary complications to a job that under ideal circumstances, should have been ruthless, calculated and straightforward. In sparing her, he'd also gambled with something else – his heart.

It'd been over eight months already, and he knew he should have forgotten her by now.

After all, he'd made it very clear to himself that there would be nothing more than that one night they'd shared, that there couldn't possibly be more than that, and that even if he  _had_  wanted it, once she'd found out about his role in the massacre of the X-Men, there was no way in hell she was ever going to want him in her life.

It was an old adage amongst him and his associates, passed round like some unholy creed: if you can get away with it, by all means mix pleasure with business; but  _never_ , under any circumstances, get emotionally involved.

Approximately two hundred and fifty nights later, he'd finally come to the conclusion that he'd got himself emotionally involved.

Sometimes he'd wake up sweating, shuddering as if from the deliberate and sinuous trail of her fingertips along his side, her nails in his back, her legs wrapped round him, her image in the mirror, the soft and wicked trap that was her body. Those memories alone unsettled him more than killing a man.

For the first time in his life he found himself understanding the meaning of remorse.

-oOo-

Friday evening, with Friday's girl on his arm.

That afternoon he'd closed a major deal, offed some art dealer visiting from Sweden, big pay-off with few words exchanged; except this time, it'd left a bad taste in his mouth. Like that fucking Lady Macbeth, he thought. Couldn't get the stain out of his mind. But, he reckoned, it was nothing that a few drinks and Claire couldn't cure. Come the morning, he'd have a bastard of a hangover, but it'd be better than thinking. As they'd walked back to his apartment, he noticed that Claire was becoming overly clingy. He'd been screwing her too long, he decided. Christ, what was he thinking? He'd already been with her for three weeks, trying to kid himself into some sort of normal, loving relationship. That was a sure-fire way for a man to screw up his life all right. Not that he hadn't already, he thought wryly. He made a mental note to end it with her the following morning. He had enough of a problem keeping the Assassin's Guild off his back, let alone women who wanted more than just casual sex.

He should have sensed someone was in the apartment right from the moment he'd stepped into it, but the lust and alcohol had already gone to his head and it was funny what that kind of thing could do to you. He'd already lost his jacket and tie before he realised that they both had themselves a peeping tom.

" _Merde_!" he exclaimed, pushing Claire away roughly and turning towards the lone silhouette of a figure standing in the centre of the darkened room. "What de  _fuck_  you doin' in my apartment!"

Two red pinpoints flamed into malevolent existence, the traces of a bad memory one would rather forget.

"Now, now, Monsieur LeBeau. Is that any way to welcome an old friend?"

The voice, silky, smooth and cultured, was unmistakable. Claire picked herself up from the floor where Remy had shoved her, hair dishevelled, one strap of her red dress trailing down her arm. The voice was one that would haunt her nightmares for many nights to come, until it would be lost in the monotony of everyday life, like a shiver up the spine, like a sudden chill over goosepimpled flesh. What fear instinctively flared in her, that made her back up against the door with trembling knees and quivering breath? It was the kind of fear that Remy knew and had locked away into the core of his being. It was the kind of fear that made fear itself pale.

"Remy," she stammered, "Who is this man?"

Remy gritted his teeth, hardly hearing her. No, no, no, it was all supposed to have ended, no more deals, no more games with  _this_  one…

"Get out," he hissed to the girl.

"But Remy, we…"

"GET OUT!" he roared.

The girl scuttled away, scurried like a frightened mouse, banging the door shut behind her.

"Well," Sinister remarked somewhat comically once she had gone, with the kind of humour that left you cold. "Still working the fly-by-night, I see."

Remy suppressed a growl, hardly trusting himself to speak.

"Why're you here?" he managed to finally level out of clenched teeth. Best to keep this short. The less he spoke to the man, the better.

Sinister gazed at him through veiled eyes, viper-like, considering. "I have a job for you," he said at last. Remy avoided the burning glare, turned, and pushed aside the slats of the Venetian blinds, peering out onto the lamplit street, lips pursed tight. Below, Claire ran out onto the pavement and called for a cab.

"I thought our 'business' was finished," he spoke, after a short moment.

"Oh no, Remy," Sinister retorted softly, "Not quite. Our 'business' is still far from finished."

Remy glowered, looking back over his shoulder. Sinister stood, his eyes blazing crimson in the shadows cast by the blinds.

"I gave you what you wanted," Remy retorted, trying to contain the anger and trepidation that was now growing steadily within him. "Access to the DNA of  _all_  the X-Men. Even Scott Summers and Jean Grey. What more do you want?"

Sinister chuckled quietly, soft as midnight velvet. "On the contrary, Gambit," he remarked, "You did not provide me with the DNA of  _all_  of the X-Men. In fact, you've neglected one very important person. Rogue."

Remy snapped the blinds shut.

"You told me she'd be left out of dis," he murmured.

"I merely told you she would come to no harm," Sinister corrected him softly. "And I hold to that part of our bargain. Nevertheless, she remains the last missing part of the equation. And I need her."

Remy turned. The light from between the blinds cut through the suited form of Sinister, transforming him into alternating strips of black, white, black, white. From within the darkness, only those two red gimlets were any source of colour. He tensed his jaw, said: "What do you want me to do?"

"Find her," Sinister replied. It was as though his voice was curiously disembodied.

"Find her?" Remy repeated scornfully. "The last thing dat girl wants is to see me. What makes you think she'd ever trust me enough to let me near her?"

"I don't ask for much, LeBeau," Sinister smiled, the expansive grin glittering in the dim and velvety night. "All I need is a small token. A strand of hair, a flake of skin. She need not even have to see you. I trust in your stealth, boy. It's what I hired you for, after all."

Remy hesitated. Dangerous, appealing; and not just in the usual way. Tracking down Rogue. Watching for her. Waiting. Playing the voyeur. Just to lay his eyes upon her again. To remember…

"What's in it for me?" he asked, after a moment.

That inane chuckle again. "I'm sure you'll have fun spying on your paramour," he said, almost indulgently. "And if your mission should be successful, there  _is_  a certain part of your anatomy that could be restored to you… Ensuring that you return to the full levels of power that were yours before I took them away from you. Understand?"

Yes – Remy understood. What he understood less was whether he really wanted those powers back, or whether he simply wanted to have her warm that cold place in his heart once again.

Either way, it was easy then to say 'yes'.

-oOo-

Two weeks and half a hundred leads later, he had found her. He had tried all the usual places – New York, Caldecott County, anywhere that was anywhere to her. Only to his surprise, he had found her a lot closer to home. New Orleans. She'd been in his hometown the whole damn time. Remy had little time to ponder on the peculiarity of this revelation and what it entailed. His purpose was to stalk his quarry and not to ruminate on the whys and the wherefores. Finding out where Rogue lived wasn't difficult. It was no easy task for a skunk-striped woman to pass unnoticed through a community. Plenty of people had seen her around and some old tramp on the street knew exactly where she lived. Block of apartments in the Tremé district. He liked to watch her and had no compunction about it. She'd come and go regular as clockwork, had a waitressing job in some seedy café two blocks away. And a cat. The tramp would see the cat sometimes, perched on the windowsill. Which windowsill? Remy asked. That one, two storeys up, east side of the building. And where was she going the last time you saw her? Going in or coming out? Remy persisted. Coming out.

Remy thanked the tramp, dropped him a couple of cigarettes since he'd been eyeing up the one in Remy's mouth. Then he positioned himself on the roof of the drugstore facing her window, and waited. And waited. Until nightfall. There wasn't a sign or trace of her. At eight o'clock the cat came out, a ginger tabby, sat on the windowsill and looked straight at him. He got the odd impression it was taunting him, as if it knew exactly where she was and what she was doing and wasn't about to tell him. He shifted uncomfortably. How was it that the whole town knew about her and he hadn't even laid eyes upon her yet? And just where the hell was she? He frowned. Probably out for a good time with some random guy she had met at the café. Probably she wouldn't be coming home at all that night. Probably she'd be spending it somewhere else…

The cat passed him once last glance before jumping off the sill and padding quietly back inside the apartment. Remy found his gut churning ominously, the kind of feeling he hadn't got since…well, since that one night he'd walked out on her actually. He half considered turning back and telling Sinister the deal was off. He didn't particularly care about retrieving his 'reward' anymore. He could live without it.

But her… Could he live without her?

He shook his head in frustration. Of course he could. But just one peek, just one little look into her inner sanctum and he'd feel better. He'd feel better about the way he'd walked out on her, the way he'd betrayed her. He didn't give a fuck about the X-Men. Just her. And he knew what he was going to do. He was going to walk right into that apartment and he wasn't just going to go and grab any old hair he could find. Even as the thought passed through his head he rebelled against it. He couldn't do this. The closer he got to her the less he'd be able to pull away. It wouldn't take a lot to turn around right now, to walk away from it all and call the whole thing off. Do that, and he'd be free from all ties to her and his past forever.

Instead he found himself sprinting across the roof and towards the apartment window. Before he knew it he'd launched himself off the edge of the building, across the street, and in through the open window, landing in what seemed to the middle of the lounge. The cat hissed and bolted at his entrance. So much for backing out, Remy thought wryly to himself. I'm in for the duration now.

He stood slowly in the darkness, looking about with practiced wariness. He could sense no other presence in the room. Only her fragrance, that old, familiar scent of her… Dieu, the scent of her. He almost reeled with it. Just standing in here was driving him crazy for her. Bad idea. Bad idea coming in here, Cajun. Best to just walk away right now…

He took a card from his coat pocket, charged it slightly and held it aloft. The room flickered into pinkish-hued life. Any normal old room. TV, sofa, coffee table, magazine rack, CDs, state of the art DVD player, paintings on the wall – no, not paintings, prints… Her coat draped across the back of an armchair. No. Not her coat. Several sizes too big. Had to be a man's…

Remy grimaced, his stomach lurching. So, he thought. This is how it is. Better not stay. Just find what he was after and move out. His heart was racing as he moved quickly towards the bedroom. Racing! He was thawing out; he could feel it. It made him sick to the stomach. Sicker than killing a man, sicker than having that stain in his mind that he couldn't wipe out… He paused, chest heaving as he stood in her bedroom, his senses drowning in her perfume. Old-fashioned stuff, lavender. The very smell of it filled him with an odd nostalgia. It'd always amused and intrigued him. The kind of women he was used to wore ornate, expensive fragrances, but her…She'd never worn anything more or less than what she was. Godammit, he'd still dream about it, that simple, soapy scent of her…

He caught himself mid-fantasy, aware that he was hopelessly addicted to the irrationality of it. Every fibre of his being was alive with it, with  _her_. He suddenly ached, ached with an old longing he had put away months ago and locked up tight. He'd already been standing here too long, he knew it. But to simply walk in her space again…

Caught off guard, it was half a second too late before he became aware of the small, blunt barrel of a gun pressing into the small of his back, heard the all too familiar click of the hammer cocking back.

"Ah knew it would only be a matter of time before your sorry ass showed up," her voice hissed into his ear, so close he felt her breath on his neck. "Only trouble is, Cajun, Ah've been watchin' you a whole lot longer than you've been watchin' me." She paused before she jabbed the gun into his back again, her voice suddenly taking on a more business-like tone. "Now raise both your hands in the air an' release the charge on that card, nice an' slow, so's Ah can see every movement you're makin'. Any false moves an' Ah shoot, y' hear me?"

He let the card fizzle out slowly, dropped the burnt remnants onto the floor. The room plunged into a darkness permeated by the ghostly luminescence of street lamps and headlights.

"You don't have t' do dis, chere," he spoke evenly. "I didn't come here t' hurt you."

"Too bad," she replied coldly. "'Cos Ah sure as hell want t' hurt you, sugah."

"We can work dis out," he answered calmly, paused. Her breath was still on his neck, stoking up memories, memories he'd tried in vain to keep away… His body ached and he knew that if that gun hadn't been pressed into his back he would have turned and pressed her to him and kissed her with all the hunger those long months had inflicted on him. "I still love you, Rogue," he confessed on a breath.

She gave a sharp bark of laughter.

"Please. You're makin' me wanna weep already. If it's any comfort to you, Ah loved you too, once. But your lies ain't gonna work on me no more. Ah know you've been meetin' with Sinister. How much is he payin' you t' do me over this time?"

"It isn't like that," he returned, jaw tensed.

"Oh. So now you're gonna tell me you just came round t' jack off by mah bedside? Spare me the grief."

"Listen t' me, Rogue," he began, trying to force a calmness he didn't feel into his voice. "I still love you, I swear it. Always have done. Dat ain't changed."

"You ain't capable of love," she snapped. The gun bit viciously into his spine and he froze. If only that were true,  _chere_ , he thought bitterly.

"If I didn't love you," he continued, heart in mouth, "I wouldn't have kept you away from de mansion and saved your life dat night."

"If you had loved me, you would've left me there to die!" she shot back, the words full of venom. There was a silence. He held his breath, his head swimming. He had thought that in preserving her life, he had done the only truly good thing ever to come out of him. But he had miscalculated. What he had left her with was a life with no meaning. And she despised him for it. Hated him, even. Shit, she was even holding a gun to him. Wasn't that evidence enough of the hatred she felt for him?

"You don't know, do you," she finally stated in a low voice. "You don't know the extent of what you've done t' me, do you, Gambit."

He felt the pressure of the gun release against his spine, heard her step back a few paces. He dared not move. He knew the barrel of the gun was still trained against him. Somewhere over his shoulder she stopped.

"Turn around Gambit," she ordered. "Take a look at your handiwork."

Her voice was low, thick with bitterness and…something else. Sorrow? Scorn? Self-mockery? He was perplexed. Still, he turned, slowly, not daring to push his luck.

Rogue stood in a sliver of silvery moonlight, face shining like a beacon, beautiful and cold as snowdrift, a small pistol held in his direction. He wasn't sure what shocked him more. The malice in her green eyes, or the fact that she was evidently in the final stages of pregnancy. He opened his mouth, unable to say anything. But she'd said…she'd sworn…

"Yeah, that's right," she gave him a cold smile, so akin to Sinister's that it made his hackles stand on end. "Ah guess y' don't jus' like t' do things by halves, do you. Not only do you betray the X-Men, not only do you destroy mah home, not only do you kill all mah friends an' all the people Ah ever cared for, but y' jus' had t' go an' screw me over too. Some love you must've had for me, Gambit."

"I thought you were on protection," was all he could manage to say.

"Yeah, well, so did Ah," she replied, sniffing, cold humour in her voice. The gun was shaking in her hand. He stared at it, mesmerised by the quivering forefinger that was pressing lightly against the trigger. One movement was all it would take.

"Y' coulda jus' touched me,  _chere_ ," he spoke after a moment. "Woulda saved you de trouble of shootin' me."

She laughed derisively. "You're kiddin' me, right? That serum yah gave me was the real deal all right. Ah bet you made certain o' that." She paused, seeing his bewildered look. "Ah ain't  _got_  no powers," she explained harshly, all the sarcasm gone out of her. "Don'tcha remember givin' me that potion o' yours t' drink? Weren't enough t' screw me, was it? Y' just had t' go that little extra step further, didn'tcha?"

"But Sinister said dat…" he began, confused. "Sinister said dat de effects were only…"

At the mentioning of Sinister's name the colour drained from Rogue's face. The gun went off, and Remy twisted only just in time: the bullet embedded itself in the wall right where he had been standing not a split second before. He looked up at her, saw her trembling violently, the gun still smoking in her right hand. She returned the gaze, her green eyes suddenly burning, lighting up her pallid face so that some of the old Rogue returned.

"Sinister!" she screeched. "Yah made me drink somethin' that  _Sinister_  gave yah! An' you  _trusted_  him!"

He said nothing, unable to give any excuse. Her mouth crumpled.

"You don't know what you left me to, Gambit," she almost whimpered. "Goin' back t' the mansion and seein' all that carnage,  _your_  handiwork, mah dead friends, the only people Ah'd evah called 'family'… You shoulda let me die, with the people Ah was  _meant_  t' die with. That was the way it supposed to end, not like this, not with me standin' here pointin' this gun at you, not with this  _thing_  inside meh that never should've been mine! An' t' think Ah loved yah! Ah loved yah and Ah didn't even know a thing about yah, not even your name!" She finished, her voice almost cracking with emotion, the gun wavering wildly in her hand, tears glistening in her eyes. "Why'd you do it, Gambit?" she questioned, swallowing the lump in her throat, refusing to cry. "Why'd you sacrifice everythin' you could've had with us, with  _me_? Why?"

He lowered his head. That same question, the one he'd asked himself ever since that night in the Morlock tunnels, the night when he had had a choice and he'd made the one he knew he would always regret.

"You don't understand,  _chere_ ," he said at last. "People like me, people who've done all de kind of things I've done… We don't get a second chance. We don't get another shot at redemption. We're bad, bad to de bone. An' I'm cold,  _p'tit_. Colder den a winter's day. I ain't got no choice, not anymore. I go warm, I go under."

"In that case," she replied, giving him a tight-lipped smile. "What makes you think the two of us would ever have a chance?" She halted, her voice suddenly going quiet. "Or is  _that_ what you want t' believe? That Ah'm your one last shot at redemption?"

They gazed at one another a long moment. For a second there was something in her eyes, the kind of look she'd given him before he'd left, that questing glance. But then, calmness. Her hand was suddenly steady.

"The sad fact is that you've turned  _me_  cold, Gambit," she replied softly. "And now there's about as much warmth left in my heart for you as you have for me. You gave me a little, once. And it wasn't enough." She paused, a marker of some sort of regret. "Do you think there'd be enough warmth in you t' want me now? Even with a baby in mah arms?"

An offer, a concession. Almost. Both knew it was too much of a long shot. He said nothing. And she smiled.

"Ah didn't think so."

The gun went off again; a bullet whizzed past his left temple and embedded itself in the plaster. He felt a thin trickle of blood slip down onto his cheek where it had grazed him. For several seconds, he was left grasping wildly at the fact that he was still alive. Rogue lowered the gun.

"Ah wanna shoot that pretty face of yours right off, Gambit," she added; oddly her voice seemed to be a progression of the gunshot, the bullet, the trickle of blood dripping down his face; it was all an onward motion, a sense of things continuing when he knew, rightfully, they should have been cut cruelly short. And she knew that the mercy she had given him was only an empty one. She knew that she was as weak as he. "But for some reason," she continued quietly, as if in begrudging awe, "Ah still have feelin's for you."

One small sliver of hope, and he would've seized it with all the courage and strength he had, when he noticed a sudden shifting of movement in the shadows behind her, the swift motion of an arm upraised in attack. Before he'd even got his warning call out, Sabretooth had emerged and struck across the back of her neck with a huge, clawed fist. Rogue collapsed to the floor without even making a sound. Remy didn't have to think before the card was already charged in his hand and he was about to send it careening Creed's way. But a cold hand touched his shoulder, chilling his very limbs into inaction. The scent on the air decayed, withered as a flower touched by frost. Shadows engulfed him as soft and cold as the night. And all of a sudden Remy understood.

The betrayer had been betrayed.

"Damn you, Essex," he seethed. "Rogue wasn't a part of our deal."

"On the contrary, my boy," the mad scientist's voice played into the darkness. "She was a part of our deal from the moment you came to me asking for that serum."

Remy only had a second to evaluate the depth of that betrayal before the telepathic bolt ripped into his brain and dragged him down into darkness.

-oOo-

He awoke later to find himself staring into his own image. His face, dried blood caked to his left cheek. His head ached dully, the hangover of the betrayal he now felt throbbing through his entire body, the only thing he was aware of. Sinister had double-crossed him. It had only been a matter of time, and he had allowed himself to be deceived.

He blinked, confused, only to see himself blink back. It was only after a moment that he realised that what he was looking at was his own reflection. Just his face, gazing back into his own with a dazed expression. Not the first thing he wanted to see considering the circumstances. Groaning, he lifted his head.

The room spun before he could get a grip on it, before he could see Rogue lying prone and bound to some sort of medical slab not more than eight feet away from him. Her eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling calmly, enough to satisfy him that she was quite alive. Behind her, he saw himself, tied to a steel chair, facing her. And behind that were a countless number of duplicates of the same scene, a thousand doppelgangers of himself, stretching on and on into infinity. A hall of mirrors. Sinister had trapped them in a hall of mirrors. The sick, twisted bastard…

Remy groaned again, fighting back the bile in his throat as an abrupt and violent wave of nausea attacked his senses. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, tried to focus on testing his bonds. The knots were tight, but he had been trained to find the weakness in any binding. Still, his limbs and muscles rebelled with a pulsating ache that racked his entire body. His mind was chaotic and confused. He tried in vain to reassemble his thoughts. If he couldn't work the ropes the next best thing was to charge and burn them. But he couldn't. He found himself stifling hysterical laughter. The betrayal was running deeper and deeper. Sinister had incapacitated him with a power inhibitor.

"Ah suppose it  _is_  kinda funny," Rogue's voice sounded unexpectedly from the centre of the room. "Things do have a strange way of coming full-circle, don't you think?"

He summoned up the courage to face the room again. A hundred Gambits stirred in response, blossoming into kaleidoscopic existence, making him dizzy. He wasn't quite able to steady himself for the dizzying experience of seeing the room unfold itself an exponential amount of times over. Where was the door to this infernal place? Where did the room begin? And where on earth did it end? It took him about a minute to focus on her. She was still lying on the slab as she had been before, eyes closed, breathing evenly.

"How long've you been awake?" he asked, voice thick, the taste in his mouth metallic.

"Long enough to think things through," she replied. Despite the calmness to her voice he sensed it was forced. Her body was tight, taut against her bonds as if she were holding it together by sheer force of will. Very slowly, almost methodically, she released a long breath, then turned her head to face him, opening her eyes, finding him. There was a small, enigmatic smile on her lips. "Baby's comin'," she informed him matter-of-factly. "And he ain't gonna make it without a fight."

He assessed her expression, the grimness in her eyes, as if she were preparing for the greatest battle her life would ever see. Dieu, she was beautiful. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her looking so beautiful and fierce. The look she gave him sent a series of chills up his spine that all at once frightened and enthralled him. Her words struck him with an ominous clarity.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

She turned her head back to the mirrored ceiling, sighed. What she saw in her reflection, he could not guess at. He had never known. It was the only thing he had ever wanted to know, ever since he'd watched her in the mirror that night, the mystery of her face, of her flesh. And now, it was too late. Never had a situation been so ironic – here, in this room, there were so many of them, and yet he had never felt so alone and far away from a human being as he did at that moment.

"It's nothin' more than simple deduction, Gambit," she replied, after a moment, this time a hairline crack of stress showing in her voice. "The two of us, we've  _both_  been screwed over. That serum you gave me wasn't just a power inhibitor. It was somethin' else. Somethin' that created all of…this." She paused, allowing it to sink into him. He grimaced, casting his mind back. Of course. The serum. How could he have been so blind? "Sinister's been playin' us from the start," she continued. " _He_  wanted this kid… Whatever was in that serum, he fixed it so that Ah'd get pregnant… So that Ah'd be the surrogate for his experiment." She halted, audibly gasping for air, feeling the baby within her moving, purposeful, focused. It was almost time. The baby was making it time. It was aware. More aware of this than she was. "Gambit," she started again, and this time her voice trembled. "Whatever this kid is, even if it's our own flesh an' blood, it ain't ours. It weren't made for us. We can't let it live, Gambit. That's why Ah've got t' fight it. Because it belongs to Sinister."

"Bravo, my dear," applauded the unmistakable velvet voice of Nathanial Essex. "How very astute of you to uncover my little scheme."

For a moment, neither could pinpoint from where the voice had emanated. They had not seen him enter, for wherever the door was, it was impossible to discern. But he stood now, in one corner of the room, his mouth upturned into a vampiric grimace, the sharply pointed fangs glistening with an almost artificial whiteness. It was that Cheshire cat grimace that marked out his presence to them; that one overwhelming and malevolent smile replayed itself within the hall of mirrors, the cage with no escape.

"How unfortunate that your epiphany has come a little too late," he smirked moving forward to stand at the end of the slab that Rogue lay upon and looking down into her eyes. "Soon the child will be born and there won't be much you can do about getting rid of it. Isn't it ironic that, after years of study and painstaking research, one of my most remarkable experiments should find itself carried out with such crude simplicity? That my subjects should give themselves over to my whims so willingly yet so unwittingly?"

"Sinister, you bastard," Remy seethed, struggling against his restraints. "I always thought you were insane, but dis…"

"What?" Sinister turned his searing gaze onto Remy. "You don't like my hall of mirrors? You disappoint me, Gambit. But then, you've  _always_  disappointed me. And I had such high hopes for you, once."

"What de hell are you talkin' about?" Remy spat.

"Hmph," Sinister wheeled round, began to circle the table that Rogue now lay upon, fighting against the child within her. "See: even  _you_  yourself do not realise the potential that you possess. Isn't it ironic that  _that_  potential is the whole reason you came to me in the first place?" He looked down into Rogue's straining face, smiled insidiously down at her. "Did you know that when he first came to me he couldn't control his powers? I had to perform a little brain surgery on him to dampen the dangerous effect those powers had on others. But, paradoxically, it was  _that_  power that I was interested in. Like you, dear Rogue, Gambit is an Omega class mutant. Left unchecked, his power is potentially limitless. Even Sinister dreads to think what that power should entail if it were honed to its full potential." He lifted his eyes to Remy again, lids narrowed. "But you – foolish, headstrong, reckless, unstable – I finally came to realise that you would never attain the levels of power I expected of you." He sneered. "You never  _did_  know the true value of the price I was willing to pay you for your part in the attack on the Morlocks, did you?"

"The Morlocks?" Rogue repeated weakly. She turned to Remy, her face ashen. " _You_  helped Sinister t' kill the Morlocks?"

Remy hung his head, unable to admit his greatest shame. But the action spoke for itself. The despair that contorted her face was greater than the pain of the child within her. Cold tears streaked down her face – another betrayal.

"Yes," Sinister hissed, the sound one of utter glee. "Your darling Gambit, traitor and murderer twice over. And he never even knew the real stakes he was gambling on! Only now, at this very moment, does he realise that the price I paid him was something so vital to my operations – that part of his brain which at any time I could have restored to him and thus created a being of almost incomparable destructive power!" He paused, looked back down at her. "The sad fact, my poor, dear Rogue, is that Gambit never would or  _could_  have realised that potential even if I restored that missing part, even if I taught him how to use it. To him, power is something to gamble and throw away. Such a trait is defective and of no use to me. So I was forced to devise another course of action – one that unfolded itself in  _you_. And  _he_ , the poor fool, was an unwitting participant in the entire charade."

He laughed derisively, the sound echoing outward as the act of mouth laughing repeated itself in the mirrors. In that one action, sound and movement merged and became inseparable.

"What you see," he began conversationally, turning round and facing the mirrors, "at this moment, in this very room around you, happens to be a little fantasy of mine. Nothing but the simple and unassuming mirror can so eloquently illustrate my ultimate dream to the world. Such a simple thing, is it not? Yet in the reflected image there is much power – and fear. A window into the soul, the ancients called it. But add a few more of these 'windows' and the body becomes, well…soulless." He chuckled softly, inanely, turned back to face them. "In many ways, it is the simple reflection that I aspire to – the flawless projection of a single entity, an immutable and immaculate copy of the corporeal form; even a single movement cannot escape the perfection contained within the original, yet it is bound to it, and  _that_ , my friends, is the subtle masterpiece of genetic manipulation."

He paused, his words curtailed by the embittered, strangled cry of Rogue. His eyes shifted to her, the beautiful face now glistening with sweat. Bloodied water dripped slowly, deliberately, from the cold metal slab and down onto the mirrored floor, the liquid drops glistening like icicles all about them.

"See – even Rogue begins to understand," Sinister remarked softly, passing a cool, lecherous hand over her forehead. "In this one act she will achieve the thing that I have desired for so long – the creation of a being of perfection, a thing which is born irrevocably from one's very self, a creature that the mother would give her entire life and soul for. But  _this_  time, this creation will  _remain_ perfect and untainted. Not like my darling Madeleyne. Not like my faithful Marauders. Not like  _you_ , Gambit. The child will be everything it was meant to be. It will be  _mine_."

"Noooooooo," Rogue moaned, knowing the moment was upon her but still wrestling against it with every ounce of strength she could muster.

"Yes," Sinister hissed.

And Rogue threw back her head and screamed.

Remy's head reverberated with the scream, the caterwaul penetrating itself into the place he thought had gone cold for so long. And he knew, he knew with a dread certainty that it was not just the cry of a mother giving birth; that it was the cry he'd so often heard uttered on the battlefield; the scream of pain, of agony, of encroaching death… The dire knowledge imported in that one scream shifted his mind into sharp focus. Strength was coming back to him. He strove silently with his bonds, the practised fingers of the thief searching and manipulating each loose fray, each weakened knot in the rope that he could find. Rogue was screeching, body contorted, calling for him and cursing him, needing him and defying him. In this moment where they should have been one, they had never before been wrenched so far apart. Any betrayal he had perpetrated previously paled in comparison to this.

"Rogue!" he broke desperately into the wailing and the howling of her voice. "Rogue! You've got to listen to me! I told you de truth dat night…! You need t' know dat! I  _love_ you!"

Rogue did not answer. Rogue was struggling, straining, not with any outer force, not with anything but herself, her own body, her own flesh. And it was her flesh he saw, spilling into the world, blooming all wet and bloody in perfect unison with all the other Rogues who fought the same age-worn battle all about him. And Sinister stood, and revelled in it, the screams and the contortions of hands and face and limbs, this manifold perfection of pain.

Remy doubled over as far as he could and vomited onto the floor.

But as for Rogue… As for Rogue there was nothing more magical or horrific than this instant in which she completed the sacred mission which had been created to define her since the moment of her conception. This moment, of giving birth to this creature born in both love and hate, this thing that tore to free itself from her and from which she, in turn, scrabbled to be free, enveloped her. And she saw herself achieving that utter freedom, that thing in which she should rejoice but knew she would never live to. She saw each motion of hers give birth to itself in the mirrors just as she gave birth; and in that singular moment the world seemed to give birth to itself an impossible number of times; she saw herself, lying in front of a mirror, cradled tenderly in his arms as he had cradled her that night; but the image seemed warped somehow – different… Everything seemed different and yet the same.

And she stopped screaming. The idea came to her that this was a mistake, an error in the lucid and glittering landscape she saw before her, the landscape of mirrors that was somehow really a landscape of the entire universe, that was somehow really… all of time? All of  _everything_? And she, she was the pinpoint of this error, and in every other image there was contained an error of its own, and only one was right, only one was true… An image of him holding her tenderly in his arms… …

"It's all right," she gasped as the child tore at her, as it fought to escape the awful error that was herself. "We've been here before… In front of a mirror… We'll be here again…"

She turned, watched Remy staring at her, aghast, as she strained one last, terrible time and the world went dim around her.

"Don't be afraid," she told him, calm, contained, suddenly gazing through eyes that saw the soul-splitting clarity of death. "We've been here before. A thousand times over. But never like this. We got it wrong. But there are others… We'll get it right… We…"

In that instant both mother and child tore free.

Rogue went limp.

The baby's wail cut into the room as if to shatter it into so many myriad shards of glass.

-oOo-

"Nonononononononononononono…"

Remy slumped, moaning, in part unravelled, in part redone; another part dead, another part reborn. Rogue stared back at him with pellucid green eyes, stared at him  _ad infinitum._

"Nonononononononononononono…" The word seemed to drone on inside him, negation to the very core; but even as he said it, he felt something switch on inside him, flare into being, ever so subtle, ever so slight. Whatever power inhibitor had been given to him, it was slowly beginning to wear off; he could feel it.

Sinister, however, noticed nothing. He held up the baby, and it squalled, kicking, fighting, fighting the way it had fought its mother, the way she had fought it. It was a boy – a son. And when Remy looked up again he saw the child's eyes, eyes like his own, except there was no black in them, only red, bright, burning red, just like Sinister's…

No: Rogue had been right. Remy would not, could not be this child's father. It had never been created for that purpose. It was Sinister that held him up, that looked upon him with that proud gaze; Sinister whose lips twisted into a vampiric smile, so that Remy got the brief and repulsive image of the mad scientist sinking his teeth into the flesh of the child, biting into its neck and draining it dry, stealing its innocence…

He looked at Rogue, eyes still staring at him, imploring; there was dreadful communication in that gaze, of something he didn't understand. What was it she had said?  _Don't be afraid…There are others…_  He gagged again, averting his eyes from the limp body on the table. Another part of him had been brutally excised and thrown away. No more remedy for this. No more redemption.

Except… …

Sinister had wrapped the boy in a white cloth and was now holding it in his arms. The baby had gone quiet – deathly quiet. An unnatural quiet, the quiet of adults. Remy looked at the boy, and it looked back at him, red eyes dull, curious. No – the child had already lost its innocence; Remy already loathed it. But it was also something more, something so small and motionless that it remained hidden even from the mirrors, as if to cast no reflection. An idea, a desperate form of escape began to form itself in Remy's head. The rope about his wrists was already coming loose. And his powers… He still had so little control of them in the wake of the inhibitor, but if he could just channel enough energy… If Sinister would just give him the right opportunity…

"This is what you should have been," Sinister was saying softly. He placed the baby next to its dead mother, pulled out something from his pocket. A pistol. "Mine," he continued, pointing the gun with composed precision towards Remy. "You should have been mine from the beginning. What a son you would've been to me."

He advanced slowly until he stood beside Remy, pressing the gun to his right temple. The opportunity unfolded and replayed itself in the mirrors. Remy saw it unfold itself as clearly as daylight. He was going to break free; he was going to take the child and raise it the way Sinister would hate the most. He would raise it to be like himself. His son, La Mort. It would be the greatest gamble he'd ever chanced. But if he could do it right… …

"If you're goin' t' kill me now," Remy replied calmly, his voice disembodied from the train of thoughts now shuttling through his brain, cabin by each tight, concentrated cabin. "Den why'd you bring me here in de first place?"

Sinister chuckled.

"You think I would deny you the chance to witness your own redemption?" he mused. "You are a failure, Remy LeBeau. Look upon this…as your first success. As your one last meaningful legacy to the world."

The words struck a chord; the death knoll for a life Remy would now leave far behind. He could even feel it dying.

"I will," he murmured, resolve finally in his voice. The cold barrel pressed against his skin, the frosty touch of the metal drawing him into a deep, calm madness from which he knew he would never wake up. Tight, focused, he willed the power into existence and it did so, flaming, spurting. He looked at Rogue; he looked at his son. "I will."

Closing his eyes, Remy LeBeau began to charge the gun.

-oOo-

* * *

[1] For those who don't know….When Remy was in his teens, his power was uncontrollable, so he went to Sinister for a lobotomy. The excised part of his brain was Sinister's payment for Remy's role in the Morlock Massacre (Uncanny X-Men #350). This was later grafted back into Remy during his timetravelling stint back to 1890s New York. (Gambit #14).

_Next: "Real Love" – Crossover with a famous movie! Yes, it just gets weirder and weirder, hah!…_


	4. Real Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whilst on a mission Rogue and Gambit become stranded in a world where the very reality of their love is tested. Movie-crossover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic contains mature content and strong language pretty much throughout. It's a crossover with The Matrix (with a little bit of the Neuromancer thrown in). This story drove me up the wall, round the bend and certifiably insane. It turned out to be waaaay longer than I thought it would be. Another one of those could-write-a-novel-on affairs. Ugh… I promise the next story will be shorter.

Liquid sliver of gunmetal snaking through the darkness, a glimmer caught too late before he felt the barrel press against his temple, waking him from his stupor, filling him with that dreaded sensation, of a half-forgotten memory, or a recurring dream.

No.

Déjà vu.

"To be or not to be," she said, voice like cream liqueur in the velvet blackness. "That…is the question." Her laugh, the texture of silk.

He'd been here before. He often got this feeling, this duplication of events; he got it because his brain was fucked, because he spent way too much time in cyberspace, because his past was a maze he couldn't navigate, because he couldn't remember anything that had happened to him before the age of fifteen. But this was different. This wasn't just a blocked out memory.

He'd been here before.

"Dat you, Rogue?" he slurred.

The gun withdrew, curtailing that ephemeral sense of familiarity.

"Time was," she began in the darkness, "you could've sensed me a hundred yards away. My scent, you said."

"Lavender," he agreed, sitting up and switching on the side lamp. The light stung his frayed nerves, itching painfully at the vestiges of a raging hangover. The motel room was cold, damp and reeked of beer. "Jesus," he groaned, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Cans of beer were scattered on the covers beside him.

"You're drunk," she remarked.

" _Non_. Fuckin' shit ain't real, is it." He swiped the cans off the bed. They clattered off the edge and onto the floor. "Although I'm tryin',  _chere_. I'm tryin' real hard."

She was sitting on her haunches beside him, as if she'd been watching him sleep, dressed in the usual black PVC leather - bodice, pants and a bolero - the shiny material glistening liquidly in the lamplight. He found himself gazing at the square canvas of flesh that extended upward from the slope of her cleavage to the smooth ridge of her collarbone. He swallowed. "Jesus," he repeated dumbly. She really was something. His neighbour's wife, to be precise. The one he wasn't supposed to covet. Dammit.

She stood, placing the gun back inside her bolero, nonchalant.

"Why didn't you call?" she asked, only one green eye partially visible behind black shades. Her voice was flat, the kind of tone that told him she was concealing what she really wanted to say.

"Didn't want t' come back," he admitted, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and eyeing her butt. She had already crossed the room and was peering out of the window, one white hand delicately peeling back the corner of one olive curtain.

"Magnus an' Storm were worried about you," she said, after a moment.

He gave a non-committal grunt. "An' you,  _chere_?"

"An' me?" She shrugged, dropped the curtain. "Ah don't give a shit what you do, Gambit."

He stood shakily, some sense of normality returning to him. A few seconds of swaying and he was right as rain. That was the good thing about this place. Hangovers didn't mean shit. "Ah," he replied morosely to her statement, searching his pockets for his packet of Camels. Of course, why should she give a shit? He was a lonewolf; like so many of his memories he kept on popping up like a bad card. Over time, he'd figured it was best to keep out of everyone's way. Block himself off, just like he'd blocked off so much of his past from private speculation. "So," he began, finding the Camels and lighting one up after several flicks of a cheap, neon green lighter. "You come t' get me out?"

She was facing him again, one hand on a well-rounded hip. "In a manner of speakin'." She paused, glared at the cigarette in disapproval, continued. "We got a mission t' run."

"Fuck."

"Courier job, Gambit, real simple. Pick up, drop off." She watched as he shrugged on his black trenchcoat. "We got a time limit as well, cowboy," she informed him. "An hour. Sentinels are after the Blackbird. Sixty minutes before they attack, Gambit. Think you can handle it?"

"Don't sweat it, 'sugah'," he replied from between the Camel, checking the magazine in his PPK. "Courier job I could do in my sleep. What I'm wonderin' is why your other half put me on de job at all, dis here Cajun bein' de prodigal son an' all."

"Magnus needs your 'expertise'," she replied after a moment. "Far as Ah know, the goods could be – ah – volatile."

"Expertise, huh?" he smirked at her. "Only one t'ing I'm good at,  _chere_ , an' dat's charmin' de panties offa  _femmes_  like yourself,  _non_?"

Her expression behind the shades was inscrutable.

"In case you've forgotten, Gambit," she levelled at him coolly, ignoring the comment. "You an' Ah both happen to be spoken for."

As if he didn't need reminding, he pouted. As if it mattered. All this was nothing more than harmless fun, harmless flirting, and this was the first time the two of them had been out on a mission together, alone, since…Well, since forever, really. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her dressed like that. It was giving him a hard on.

"So?" He shrugged. "You're spoken for an' I'm spoken for. What's de big deal? Storm an' I, we ain't nothin' serious, jus' havin' a bit of fun. An' Magnus… Well, ever since I saved his ass back in Tokyo dat day, he owes me one, know what I'm sayin'? It's not like any of dis is real anyhow."

"Intentions, Gambit," she reminded him dryly, tapping her forehead. "It's what goes on in your mind that's more real than anythin'. An' it's our desires that make us most human."

" _Mais oui_ ," he agreed, sidling up to her, tracing the ridge of her bodice suggestively with a finger, his nail lightly grazing the slope of her breast. "An' what I 'desire' right now is one kiss from you,  _p'tit_. Where's de harm in dat? S'not like I'm gonna keel over an' die now, is it?"

She batted his hand away, her mouth suddenly hard.

"Ah ain't here to kiss yah sorry ass. Ah'm here t' take you back." She spun on her heel, brushed past him towards the door. "Now we'd best get movin', sugah. We don't make the sixty minutes, we get stranded here.  _Permanently._ "

-oOo-

The 'goods' turned out to be 5'10", 142 pounds, and a redhead. Her name was Mystique. At least that's what she called herself – not that names really mattered.

She was one of the oldest sentient programs ever created, a prototype for the Agents, a shapeshifter. She was a curious artefact; her existence now all but redundant, she was a cast-away, something extravagant and Roman. To escape the monotony of a life spent running from inevitable deletion, she would relieve her frustrations by becoming others, by slithering through a plethora of lives with the reptilian precision of the serpent; only to crawl out again, hideous, amorphous, a non-entity as nameless and faceless as a clockwork puppet.

Mystique was violent, capricious, schizophrenic – and that made her more human than her makers deemed necessary. She'd lived too many lives to be one coherent, integrated whole. She was a creature of gestalt, a nine-headed hydra, as malleable and protean as molten lava.

Gambit had played with her before, and he didn't trust her. But then, very few did.

Twenty minutes into the mission and they'd found her living in a decrepit mansion on what used to be the posh side of town; 1407 Graymalkin Lane. She'd once been married to a Baron, she said, back when her life had had some meaning, some purpose. Now she sat in a chair of faded, burgundy leather, legs crossed like a man, one foot resting on her knee, jerking backwards and forwards in an oddly mesmerising nervous tic. One hand calmly held an ancient .22 Walther in their direction.

"Now let's get one thing straight," she told them conversationally, pleasantly. She was beautiful, her face all sharp contours and hard angles, glacial, Arctic. She had the watchful calm of an insect. "I ain't your fucking goods." Her free hand opened the side of her black leather bomber jacket, giving them a view of the veritable arsenal of guns and ammunition she had inside. "This is business for me as much as it is for you. You pick me up, you drop me off at the safehouse and I won't give you any trouble." She closed the coat again, smiled. "Bastards have been searching for me for days now," she continued by way of explanation. "Can't be too careful."

She gave Gambit a marked look; old acquaintances renewed in that one glance. No, he thought, not volatile; but definitely dangerous. When Mystique struck, she struck with lightning speed, with composed venom, so as to be motionless, soundless. The fire in her burnt cold; she had all the soul of chrome circuitry. She was the machine world's quintessential black widow.

The mansion was a sprawl of halls and passageways and antechambers whose old world familiarity tickled the nape of his neck with a crawling paranoia he longed to itch. Rogue was scouting out ahead; she liked to do that, she sniffed out trouble like a bloodhound. He, on the other hand, took it as it came. That's why he was left trailing behind through the crumbling corridors with Mystique. Once, about a year ago, she'd poached him in Tokyo, introducing herself as Raven Darkholme. They'd spent the best part of one week together, drawn to one another by the fact that both knew, instinctively, that the other was not what they seemed. Professional curiosity, she called it. He'd deemed her psychotic enough to be insensitive to the inner machinations of the criminal underworld. Bad mistake. By the time he'd worked out what she really was, she'd used him, appealing to his inherent sense of kleptomania, partnering up with him for some big heist before leaving him in the none too capable hands of the Yakuza. Storm had come to the rescue. Rogue, like she'd said, hadn't given a shit.

She'd told him it was his fault he'd allowed himself to be done over by a pretty face, but he'd refused to believe it, because Mystique was a machine, and machines weren't women. Nevertheless, as she'd sat there on that leather seat and parodied the posture of a man, there had been something about her, something wily and feminine. He'd known then, from the very moment he'd walked in and seen her face, that last year's 'business' had been far from concluded. And, judging by the way she was walking beside him now, smug strut and all, she knew it too. Well, fine. If that's the way she wanted to play it, he was only too happy to compromise.

Once Rogue was out of earshot, Gambit grasped her by the collar and thrust her back out of sight against a marble pillar.

"I don't trust you, 'Raven'," he seethed, jamming the PPK against her ribs.

" _Quid pro quo_ , bro." She was smiling; calm, remorseless. "I don't trust  _you_."

He growled, jabbing her roughly with the barrel of the gun so that she hissed.

"So de machines are huntin' you, eh?" His finger involuntarily caressed the trigger. "How much you wanna bet I could do their job for them, right here an' now? Been itchin' for some payback, Mystique. D'you know the Yaks like to break fingers? Lucky for me dis place ain't real, huh? Means my fingers still get t' pull dis trigger."

"You won't kill me." She grinned, a mirthless, toothy, canine grin. "I know what you want. I can even give it to you." The lines of her face submerged, rearranged, resurfaced; latex quicksilver. In the blink of an eye Mystique had disappeared, features displaced. He gaped. Rogue's face. Even down to the small mole on her left cheek. Only the smile wasn't hers – the upturn of the lips stretching into Mystique's sly, conniving grin. "Rogue, the untouchable," she cooed. "Do you know you used to talk about her in your sleep?" She gave an insane chuckle, Rogue's laugh, a perverse parody. "You ever fucked her, Gambit? You know what it's like to be inside her?"

Then the smile was gone, and the face was Rogue's, all Rogue's; the plaintive mouth, the beseeching, green-eyed gaze, unassuming seductiveness, the face he imagined she must have worn in her old life, the life he had never touched.

"Ah'm here, Gambit," she taunted him quietly, so quietly her voice seemed to tremble – and it  _was_  her voice, every inflection perfectly pitched, music poison in his veins, the voice she used when she came to him, warm and willing, in all his dreams. His pulse quickened.  _So real, so goddamn real…_  One small, soft hand climbing his chest, eerie, spider-like; the imprint of five, warm, insinuating fingers upon his chest. "Touch me." She gripped his shirt, pulled him closer. "Kiss me."

Rogue's breath. He hesitated, knowing she was false, his senses perplexed, telling him otherwise. Her hand was on his collarbone, crossing the neckline of textured nylon and onto his skin, fingers trailing the column of his neck, making him shudder. Dieu. Rogue's breath. Rogue's breath on his lips, the heat of her skin on his, Rogue's tongue flicking, snake-like, against his mouth, her body, lithe, lissom, all the curvaceous contours he'd mapped out with hands and mouth in fevered imagination, pressing against him, delicious contact, cracking open the memory of their first kiss…

His eyes snapped open. No, no, no! Not true! They'd never kissed – there was no such memory. It was false, all lies! Anger, desolation, raw bitterness burst through his sudden bewilderment, and he grasped the woman by the hand, throwing her to the floor, whipping out the gun in her direction as she rolled over onto her back, grinning wildly, her own gun flashing out to mirror his. That insane grin, marring Rogue's lips. He seethed. She was still wearing Rogue's face, taunting him, goading him to make his move.

"I got your number, 'Raven'," he growled, trying to hold the guttering image down. Memory of her lips, her mouth… "You don't take her face off right now, I'll…"

She giggled, training the barrel of the gun over his heart, licking her lips.

"Maybe Ah could delete  _you_ , sugah, before you delete me. Wanna see how fast Ah can shoot?" She spread her legs, touched herself obscenely over the leather pants. "Or why don't we make it, right here, right now? Maybe she could join us. Y' think she likes to do girls, Gambit?"

Something flamed in him, rage, confusion; a memory he knew wasn't real had been splintered open, the fissure scoring through his mind… The non-Rogue's face was looking up at him, mocking him, jeering him, seducing him… The flame spurted. He cocked the hammer back.

"GET HER FACE OFF, YOU BITCH, OR I'LL FUCKIN' SHOOT YOUR GODDAMN BRAINS OUT!"

The words reverberated down the corridor, jarring his head, closing up the wound in his mind, the false memory of a kiss. The flame died, withered in on itself, back into the small, burning coal in the pit of his stomach. No; in his heart. His hand trembled in the aftermath. He couldn't keep the barrel on her forehead; it danced all over that beautiful, familiar face so that he thought he was drunk on the onslaught of sudden sensation and recollection.

"Gambit." It was Rogue, the real Rogue, wading through the shadows of the corridor to stand behind her doppelganger, voice calm, even. "Put the gun away," she ordered. Pure, unadulterated Rogue. He took in a shuddering breath, lowered the gun. When he raised his eyes to hers, he saw himself reflected twice in the dim light playing off her shades. "What the hell are you doin'?" she asked him coldly.

He couldn't answer. The flame had exploded so intensely that it had incinerated his faculty of speech. There was a knot in his throat. The doppelganger got to her feet, gazed on him with narrowed eyes. Mystique's face.

"He's crazy," she addressed Rogue, brushing herself down with one, broad sweep of the hands.

Rogue passed him a questioning look over Mystique's shoulder, but he dared say nothing. She sighed, shook her head and swung round. The corridor framed her, a tunnel on into seeming infinity.

"We don't have time for this shit," she said. "Let's move."

Mystique followed, looking back at him over her shoulder, once. As the shadows slid over her face, he caught the eyes, the nose, the mouth of Rogue, rippling over her features one after another in fluid succession. Silently, and with a leering wink, she blew him a lingering kiss, before turning away once more.

-oOo-

Forty minutes.

Forty minutes and counting, and they'd just dropped Mystique off at the safehouse. Now Rogue sat in the passenger seat of the car, face upturned towards the open window, sensing the premonition of rain from thick, concrete-coloured skies. At the wheel, Gambit was still mulling over the episode in the mansion. Mystique's words, before they'd left her.  _Know something, Gambit? You spend too much time jacked in. You even smell of fucking grease. Something you're trying to run from, Gambit? Something you're trying to hide?_

He turned a corner, burning rubber, teeth gritted violently. Should've killed the bitch, he thought. Should've taken her fuckin' brains out…

"What'd she say t' you?" Rogue asked suddenly. He said nothing, only clenched his teeth tighter. His jaw ached. What Mystique had pulled back in the mansion had unsettled him, disturbed him more than the time he had first seen the fields, or the deserts of the Real – but he couldn't say why. That vague, resurfaced memory had left a bitterness on his tongue, a nagging persistence in his mind he couldn't pin down. Recollection of Rogue's kiss, heated passion in her embrace… He shook his head. Had to be false. Just like all the other memories he had.

"Okay," Rogue said wearily, resignation in her tone. "Okay." After that she ignored him.

He expelled a pent up breath, glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. 20:28. That left… Eighteen minutes. Eighteen minutes left alone with her.

Rogue picked up her cellphone, began dialling. He found himself brooding absently on Mystique's words again, on the replica of Rogue's face with its insidious smile, her rough tongue on his lips, lustful, languid. The small coal inside him flamed, faded. When he got back, he'd need a stiff drink. And a cold shower. Mystique, the déjà vu, the false memory… Too much weird shit for one day. He glanced back at the clock. 20:30. Not much time left. Depending on where the exit was, they'd be cutting it fine. Beside him, tiredness was radiating from Rogue's pores like a cold sweat; he'd pissed her off, and she wanted to get back. Him, all he wanted was the thing sitting right next to him. The pale contours of that beautiful face between his hands, the delicate recollection of touch. Face it, Cajun, he thought bitterly, you jus' sore 'cos she wouldn't level out the score. De  _femme's_  taken, and dis was your only chance to be goin' somewhere wit' her. Even if it wasn't gonna last an hour. Is it too much to ask for? Just a few stolen minutes of make-believe?

Beside him, Rogue spoke into the phone, that lazy and voluptuous Southern drawl, the soundtrack to most of his sleepless nights.

"Forge? Yeah, we're closed. Slim's team will take care of her when she gets out. Plain sailin' from here on in, sugah. Listen, think you can set us up an exit? Somewhere close, we're cuttin' it fine. Okay, got it. Tell Magnus Ah'll be back in ten."

Gambit frowned at the name.  _Magnus_. The neighbour whose wife he wasn't supposed to covet. It was one of the first rules for any man who wanted a sane life, and the amount of times he'd broken it and got away with it, he reckoned he could've made it with her. No. Their first meeting had passed through the both of them like a jolt of electricity, but she'd always fended him off with almost brutal determination. It'd all come to a head that night, that night that had not quite yet joined the daze that the rest of his life had become. Him, dragging Magnus' half dead ass back from that kamikaze mission back in old Tokyo, himself in need of fifteen stitches to a cracked skull and with one rib sticking into his left lung. It was Magnus' face she had cradled, Magnus' lips she had kissed. Magnus' bed that she had sat beside, hour after goddamn hour, not eating, not sleeping. He hadn't seen her for weeks.

After that he'd jacked in so fucking much he couldn't tell what was real anymore.

His hand gripped the wheel, knuckles white. Back then, he'd spent six days in virtual Kabuki-chou, screwing virtual whores in twisted revenge before he'd realised that she didn't even care. It had been Storm that had called him up, telling him he'd starve to death, demanding that he come back. He'd returned, but only because by that time he'd lost all sense of anything. Numbness. A black hole. He took a corner, tires squealing in protest. And yet still he couldn't bear to cut his losses and run. He was still so madly in love he would've been willing for just one minute shared with her, right there and then, even if not a single second of it was real.

"Gambit?"

Her voice broke into his train of thought, and he found himself staring out onto the road, racing the powerlines up into a murky, looming sunset, dense clouds gathered like thickly daubed paint upon an open canvas.

"You okay?" she asked again. Real concern.

"I'm jus' fine,  _chere_ ," he replied, tight-lipped, eyes on the road.

She sighed, turned away. Then said: "You need to take a right here. Forge got us an exit. That club they built on the old warehouse."

Ah, yes. That, he remembered, with oblique clarity. One dingy little room, techno, cheap booze and even cheaper women. How could he forget? The memories left a stale taste in his mouth, a sour thickness. He wondered, fleetingly, what she'd used to do in her former life.

Funny. Three years and so much of her remained a mystery.

-oOo-

20:36.

The club was pounding sweat and hormones, sleek and shimmering with gunshot metal, PVC, leather. So early in the night and already that single, dingy little room thrummed with the twisting, gyrating bodies; the tidal wave of teenage delinquency crashing in on a crest of pheromones – no pretence at romance. The room was a clarion call, a discarded memo of the dirty, tawdry little things he could never get back; slick skin, the tang of liquor mixed with sweat, a certain rotation of the hips no one seemed to be able to master back in the real world. Back there, dancing was more like tribal warfare. Here, it was an art. Not an especially refined or accomplished one – but it took a certain finesse, an ambidexterity that came instinctively with the underworld and all its shady inhabitants. Pushing their way through the surging bodies, he felt the aching frustration that had been building in him the past forty minutes work itself into something of an inner frenzy. The memories this place threatened to conjure up – overload. Just too damn much.

In front of him, Rogue waded, seemingly impassive to everything about her. She had the artfulness of a dolphin, the way she swam past those grinding hips. Elegance. Grace. Flowed through the human architecture like water, body twisting, back arching, buttocks swivelling. Weaving. In, out, in, out.

He must've made contact with twenty half-naked girls by the time they'd reached the other end of the room, but he'd hardly noticed at all.

He followed her into the back room, shut the door quietly behind him, switched the light on. It buzzed into sickly, olive-hued life. Few broken chairs, an ancient stereo-system, the metal scaffolding of a discarded bedstead. Musty odour of uninhabitation. The phone sat squatly on a table at one end of the room. Black, old-fashioned, with a clock-faced dial. He held his breath, vaguely remembering the numbers 2,0, 3, 6.

He caught her before she could reach the phone, arms encircling her waist, his blood pounding to the staccato rhythm of the techno as his arousal pressed into the small of her back. She exhaled sharply, arching against him with primal instinct, baring the angle of her neck to him, white against black. He leaned in, kissing her there feverishly, catching the faint acridity of sweat, the subtle, off-purple shades of lavender. Dieu, she smelled so real. So damn real.

She moaned softly at the contact, emboldening him, spurring him on further than he had intended. One hand moved to capture her breast, unyielding through the smooth, inflexible PVC. It was a move too far. She twisted away from him, wheeling round, placing one hand warningly against his chest, holding him back.

"Are you out of your fuckin' mind?" she seethed.

"Only if you're gonna keep holdin' out from me, Rogue," he answered breathlessly, desperation edging into his voice. She heard it. It only made her angrier.

"You fuckin' son-of-a-bitch, this ain't about me, is it? You  _know_  they can see us back on the ship. You tryin' t' call Magnus out or somethin'?"

"Dis ain't b'tween me and Mags, Rogue," he insisted. "It's b'tween you an' me, always has been. Mags don't figure into any of dis."

She pushed him back fiercely, fire in her eyes.

"Magnus is mah husband! Ah think he figures into this a whole damn lot, you bastard! Don't you dare touch me like that again or Ah'll cap you, y' hear me!"

She whirled round but he caught her hand, pulling her roughly into his arms. She struggled violently, but he only clasped her all the tighter. After a moment she gave in, the length of her body trembling against his.

"Why won't you let go?" she whimpered into his chest.

"B'cause we got somethin', Rogue," he murmured into her hair. "An' we both knew it was a good thing, from the very beginnin'. Tell me how t' let go of it the way you have an' I will." She did not answer, but the trembling in her body stopped. Her arms hung limply by her side. So, he thought. She hasn't let go either. "Listen, Rogue," he began, "you swear t' me there's nothin' b'tween us, I'll believe you; it's over. Just let me hold you 'till dat phone rings. I ain't never gonna have another chance wit' you,  _chere_. Just until dat phone rings."

The phone rang. She stirred, but lingered a split second too long, just one split second, enough to make all the difference. Then she expelled a long, quivering breath, pulled away from him, picked up the handset and placed it against her ear.

Nothing happened.

She slammed the handset down again, face ashen.

"What?" he asked.

"The line went dead."

"Shit," he cursed under his breath.

"The Sentinels must've got t' the ship." She halted, lifted a hand to her mouth. "Oh God…"

He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"S'okay,  _chere_. We're still here. Dat means dat… …"

The tidal wave of pain that hit him was as intense as the recollection of that kiss they had shared, every stark second of their embrace suddenly shattering through the wall of enforced dream and into suppressed, but very real memory. It caught him in a tailwind, sparking in his solar plexus and then radiating outward, dragging him under with climactic brutality so that he wasn't even able to discern whether it was the pain or the memory that he felt, pain or pleasure.

He heard her call his name once, the way she had done that day, before he was tugged away, helpless, by the tide.

-oOo-

Somewhere in the darkness, the weight of the recollection swam up to the surface from the place where the pain had embedded itself deep inside the core of his thrumming body, the memory he'd denied and disowned.

Him, back in her room, sitting at the table, finger absently rolling a matchstick back and forth across smooth steel; her, walking across the room to fetch him a drink; nameless, synthetic alcohol with the pungency of tank fuel. Idle chitchat punctuated by too much silence. Furtive stares. Funny – she walked the same way in the real world as she did here – that sway of the hips, artfully seductive, feline. Her, telling him Magnus would be coming back soon, placing the drink on the table; baleful thud, the pretext ended. Him, taking the cue, drawing her into his lap, kissing her fiercely, her mouth responding with all the lust and passion she had hidden away for so long.

The thrill of transgression, and something more. She cradled his head in her hands, lips on his forehead, saying his name, yearning, wistful. Breath quivering as she tried not to say it. As she tried not to give her heart away when it already belonged to another.

Three little words, trembling, tumbling, breaking the barrier; no return.

Magnus' face framed by the doorway, ashen, aghast.

And then, the memory drowned.

-oOo-

The first thing he caught was her scent. The lingering fragrance of her skin, permeating the heavy, ponderous odour of moisture on the air, the promise of rain. Then the warmth of her body, the dark outline of her shape beside him, the sensation of her hand, touching his cheek. For a moment he was confused. There was an odd symmetry between the memory and electronic reality – neither of it grounded in anything more substantial than neural patterns and brainwaves. The only thing that seemed real and tangible was the pain. It had localised in his abdomen, a white-hot flame that played havoc with his senses, sending the two dichotomies of past and present into explosive collision.

"Gambit? Gambit, you're okay," he heard her say. Consternation. Relief. Bitter cocktail. He didn't care. Her voice. She splashed water in his face. Evian, some such shit. It didn't matter. All the same. Immaterial. "Damn you, cowboy, tell me you're okay."

"I get it," he muttered, delirious. He could swear he could still taste her lips. "I get it. Magnus saw us. Dat's why he went nearly got hisself killed. Bastard saw us."

He opened an eye, feeling intoxicated with pain. Her face was white, deathly white. What, he thought. Somethin' I said?

"Tell me you're okay," she repeated after a moment, with forced composure.

"Hah," he croaked. "Feel like I got skewered by a pole."

She hissed. "Shit."

Sensory systems, coming back online. Her face, jaundiced under the green-hued light of some street lamp. He was lying propped up against a wall, her coat rolled underneath his neck. He caught the tickling sensation of water droplets coursing down his cheekbones. It made him want to laugh deliriously.

"Listen," she began slowly, enunciating every word with a calm, temperate clarity. "Somethin' must've happened t' the Blackbird. Sentinels, crash, virus – shit, Ah don't know. Bottom line is, we're still here. Dialled up Forge, no response. Either the others have been kayoed, or they've croaked. Called the emergency hotline. They're sending one of our boys down for us. Twenty minutes, they said." She glanced at her watch. "That leaves us five." She paused, her smile taut. The words had come out like a mantra, an exercise in self-control. She touched his cheek briefly, tenderly. "You're gonna be okay, sugah. Just hold on in there. Remember, the pain ain't real. It belongs to the meat. An' the meat ain't here. Only your mind."

He took her advice, finding himself lucid enough to steady his breathing, to concentrate on dulling the gruelling agony in his abdomen. It worked. After a few minutes, the stabbing pain subsided into a throbbing numbness.

"You okay?" he managed to ask at last, as she helped lay him out on the floor, shifting her coat to pillow his head. She grimaced.

"Ah'm just fine, sugah. Looks like whatever got you didn't get me."

She took the bottle of Evian, held it to his lips. Her movements were measured, efficient, mechanical almost. He sensed she'd gone into automaton. It was her way of dealing with the gnawing persistence in both their guts. What had happened to their crew? And why were they still alive? Storm. For some reason, he thought of Storm.

"Dat shit ain't real," he protested weakly as she tilted the bottle, letting the water run into his mouth and mostly down his chin.

"Shut up an' drink," she ordered, business-like. "It'll help you focus."

He obeyed.

He was still chugging down water four minutes later when they heard footsteps approaching. Rogue stood, silent as a panther, whipped the gun from her belt and pointed it in the direction of the sound, arm straight and taut as machinery. Moments later the disembodied footfalls stepped out of the shadows and into the ring of crackling lamplight. Short man, stocky, muscles built like bricks – no amount of blowing was going to bring this little piggy's house over. A thick mat of dark hair sprung out from under the short sleeves of his tight black nylon shirt and over onto his exposed arms, arms the thickness of tree trunks. An antique Stetson graced his head; a cigar was stuck in the grimace that was his mouth.

"Y'can put the piece away, lady," he growled between his teeth, eyeing her with only passing interest. "I'm the cavalry."

Rogue dropped her arm, exhaling silently. Relief was playing across her mouth but she managed to hide it.

"Ah could smell the cigar smoke," she explained, sniffing. "Thought you were a civ. Didn't know one of our own would be into nixons."

The short man grinned. "Cheap, nasty and totally ineffective they may be, but you can't beat the taste." He paused, looked down at Gambit lying on the floor. "Ain't that right, pup?"

"Nice t' see you too, Logan," he slurred sarcastically.

Rogue placed the gun back in its holster. "You know each other?"

"Sure," Gambit shrugged. Something seemed to have happened to him; the memories were becoming less and less hazy. It was disconcerting. So much running; he didn't want it all to come back now. "Five years ago," he told her, "Las Vegas, was pullin' a heist, big con game, easy money. Wolverine, contact name Logan; put me in touch with the head honcho, the 'X' man." He stopped on a sudden stab of incandescent pain, held it down with a spluttering cough. "Bald dude, friend o' Magnus. Went back all de way t' 'Nam – like  _dat_  ever happened. Naturally I'd heard de word on de street, was curious. Bastard here asked me whether I wanted to know. Like a fool, I said yes. Shouldn't've trusted a man who was one of the first t' be unplugged, someone who likes the taste of RAM so fuckin' much he has to be intravenously fed through a drip, 'cos he's jacked in so fuckin' much his brain's more machine than human."

"You done yet?" Logan asked him calmly.

"No I'm not fuckin' done yet, it's your fuckin' fault I'm still not plugged into fuckin' cyberspace!" he raged, ending on a groan of pain and twisting onto his side, clutching onto his stomach. Rogue got to her knees beside him, cradled his head. "Meat," she reminded him softly, then looked up at Logan. "What news on the Blackbird?"

Logan chewed on the cigar a brief moment before taking it out of his mouth. "Sorry kid. The Blackbird went down. Got into a scrap with Sentinels and managed to shake 'em off, but it looks like Cable wasn't the pilot we all thought he was. Crashed. Forge managed to send out a signal just before they went down. Wreckage down some shafts in old Hong Kong. Got a rescue team headin' your way as we speak." He grinned, skeletal-like. "Guess you two were the only ones to survive. Now ain't that a lucky break? You should be thankin' the man upstairs, or whoever the fuck it is that created this sorry excuse for an existence."

"Lucky, my fuckin' ass," Gambit muttered hoarsely, rolling onto his back. Rogue was clutching onto his bicep roughly, her nails digging through the nylon fabric, her knuckles white. She shuddered, hiccupped. Two big tears slid off her cheeks and onto his chest. Crying. Rogue was crying. Had to be a first.

"Aw,  _p'tit_ , don't cry now," he begged breathlessly, unlatching her hand from his arm and grasping it with his own. With her resolve gone he suddenly felt lost. "Please don't cry now, baby…"

She pressed his palm against her cheek and wept silently, so that she might not have been crying at all, if he hadn't felt the moisture of her tears gather between his fingers. He swallowed hard, fighting the dull throb that the pain in his abdomen had now become.

"What now?" he asked Logan softly, looking over his shoulder, cupping her cheek.

"Here's the deal," the older man replied stoically, leaning in. He'd long ago given up beating round the proverbial bush. "I take you two to a safehouse. You stay there and don't move your asses a fuckin' inch, y' hear me? All you two gotta do is wait for the phone t' ring, okay? Call'll be your ticket outta here."

"How long?" Gambit persisted grimly. "Whatever's happened to me, most likely I'm bleedin' out an' in serious need of attention, know what I'm sayin'? I might not make it."

Rogue dropped his hand, said nothing.

"We're workin' as fast as we can, bub, believe me," Logan answered, face contorted into something that resembled sympathy. "This ain't the first time we've done this." His eyes went hard as he rose and placed the cigar back in his mouth. "And so help us God, it won't be the last."

-oOo-

Fresh pain clamped in on his muscles like a red-hot vice as he staggered to the waiting car, and he'd passed out by the time they'd bundled him in. When he awoke again, he was lying on the wide, floral-printed expanse of some king-sized bed, in a room that reminded him of a hotel he'd once stayed in back in Paris. Magnolia walls and plain, oak-hewn furniture. Gaudy prints. Old world. European. It was weird, all too  _weird_. He felt as if he'd slept only to wake up five years before. The air smelt of something familiar from his old life – white musk, the feminine fragrance lingering on the atmosphere like an intense and voluptuous memory. He remembered, involuntarily. Skinny girl, freckles, black hair, in the back of a car; Lafayette, September. Rain. Rain.

He rebelled against the memory, fighting back the sour edge of vomit in his throat. Don't want to remember. Don't want to face it. Don't want it all to come back.

Rogue was standing, framed by the open window, her back to him, hair slicked back, baring the sinuous nape of her neck, loose strands brushing her skin faintly in the breeze. Outside, all he could see was sky, a thick, viscous grey. Drops of rain shuttled intermittently past the window and down to the ground, destination unknown. The air was moist, almost chilly. She was hugging herself tight, looking, thinking. Whatever she saw, whatever she thought, it was all as much a mystery to him as everything else about her was, except for the taste of her mouth on his own.

"He saw us, didn't he," he rasped in her direction. She half-started, dropped her hands to her sides, turned to face him. There were dark rings round her eyes. However long he had slept, she hadn't succumbed at all, not for a moment.

"Who?" she asked, flat.

"Magnus." He stopped, a spasm of pain jolting through his nerves. She said nothing and he looked up at the ceiling, avoiding her gaze as he continued, no perturbation with the truth. "Remember when I caught up wit' him in Shinjuku. Dat wasn't no kamikaze mission he was on. Bastard was just takin' time out. Started beatin' on me an' I took it. Guess I felt I kinda deserved it, y'know? Told me he wasn't goin' t' let you get hurt by a good-for-nothin' joeboy like me. I told him I'd never hurt you, dat I couldn't b'cause I…" He halted, unable to say it. She didn't push him, and he continued after a breath. "He got pissed, real pissed, told me he knew I was tryin' t' screw you over, dat I'd been tryin' t' screw you over since de first day we met, dat I wasn't capable of…" Pause. "Well, anyhow, dat's when I lost it. Gave back as good as I got, beat him good an' true. Jesus H. Christ, we nearly killed each other. Afterwards though…never spoke 'bout it again. By den, you'd already made your choice." He closed his eyes, stars bursting behind his eyelids. "I woulda let go den, if you hadn't kept on givin' me a reason t' carry on."

She moved to sit beside him on the bed. She was quiet a long while.

"It took you eighteen months to remember all that?" she mused at last. There was incredulity, sorrow in her voice.

"No shit," he muttered. Her mouth jerked, one corner curving upward, crescent-like.

"You jacked in too much," she replied, studying the pattern of his hand on the duvet. "Thing's like a drug, fries your synapses if you go it too long. Logan, when he comes out, he's gonna be a fuckin' zombie." She paused, eyes moving to his again, a bitter smile on her face. "Cable thought you'd lost it, told Magnus we should have you certified. But Magnus wouldn't let you go. Said you were dynamite jacked in, that we needed you. Guess he was feelin' kinda guilty too." She looked away, the muscles in her throat tightening.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. She glared at him then, eyes blazing green fire.  
"What the fuck do you care 'bout Magnus?" she spat sharply, suddenly angry. "You two, the both of you, you were like boys with toys, fightin' over somethin' neither of you could have! You, mah body, and him, mah…" She halted, almost choking on the word she'd almost allowed to escape. He knew then. He knew how it was. It wasn't over. It never had been. That small, red-hot coal inside him burned.

"So I didn't like de guy," he finally admitted quietly, reaching for her hand; she didn't resist. "But dis…" He paused, drew in a laboured breath. "He loved you,  _p'tit_. He made you happy, an' I only gave you grief. I didn't want t' hurt de two of you, I just… Goddammit, Rogue, don' make me say it…"

She turned away from him, shoulders quivering; the sculpted shoulder blades above the black line of the PVC shuddered involuntarily.

"You don't understand," she said, voice muffled.

"I understand enough," he said.

She turned then, buried her head in his chest and sobbed. After a long while, the rhythm of her sobs lulled him into a delicious daze, and he fell asleep.

-oOo-

He awoke again to razor-sharp agony, screaming into the night, feeling the very fabric of his nerves rupturing under an incision of pain that was molecule-fine in its precision, as if his body was unravelling. In a trice she was beside him in the darkness, her fingers touching his bare chest, his shoulder, his face, finding him.

"It ain't real," she spoke urgently, breathless as he thrashed beneath her. "This ain't your body, only your mind. The pain ain't real!"

She repeated the mantra over and over, until he began to hear her through the buzzing crescendo in his ears. He rolled sideways, quaking, sweating, curling himself up tight into a ball, falling into the lullaby of her voice, whimpering into the pillow, feeling for the pinpoint of pain and trying desperately to hold it down. The world swam inside that pulsating, nauseating, green expanse. Oh God. Can't focus anymore. Can't separate. Can't do it…

Rogue had been right. He'd been jacked in way too much. Not enough time in his real body. Not enough time to get used to real pain. He just couldn't fucking separate. The green expanse tunnelled as he succumbed to the agony, a rotating chamber from which he could not escape. Yellow pinpricks stabbed the back of his eyes, burning his retina. Then red. Swarm of lights, green, yellow, red. Green, yellow. Red.

"I'm dyin', Rogue," he gasped, closing his eyes, opening them, feeling the world spin. "I'm gonna die."

"You ain't gonna die," she told him, firm, calm. "You've got t' focus. Focus an' you'll be fine."

She rolled him back over onto his back, passed a hand over his cool, clammy forehead. Her touch was insubstantial as smoke, the impression of her fingers barely human – something ethereal and frightening. He felt as if her touch had drained him dry.

"I'm dyin'," he moaned, closing his eyes again, feeling his head swim with the premonition of blissful release. "Dieu, Rogue, let me die…"

She slapped him once across the face, hard. His eyes snapped open, pupils dilated. He caught the scent of her, shower gel. Her hair, brushing his face. Her breath on him. Her hands on his shoulders, one end of a tug of war he could feel but dreaded to name. Death.

"No, no, no, no!" she wailed. "Don't you dare fuckin' die on me, asshole! You die on me, Ah ain't got no one left! No one! Y'hear me! Ah've already lost Magnus! Ah ain't gonna lose you! Y'hear me, Gambit? No way in hell I'm gonna let you go!"

"Fuck you, Rogue," he drawled, closing his eyes again, breath coming sharp, staccato. "Let me go…"

She shook him then, wildly, but he couldn't open his eyes. He felt her nails tear into his shoulders, the brutal savagery of her fingers as she shook him with unrestrained violence, clinging on, talons hooking him in, reeling him back.

"No!" she screeched somewhere in the background. "No, Ah  _can't!_  Ah'm your reason, goddammit! Yah told me Ah was your reason…! Please don't leave me, Gambit!  _Please_!"

Sobbing. Damn woman was crying again. All those tears stored up inside of her, it had to have been the first time she'd let them out in years. They weren't real. But they were for him. For him.

And then abruptly, the agony wracking his body dwindled into a blazing streak that centred down in the pit of his stomach. Excruciating, but bearable. Just about. He opened one eye, then another. Something was wrong. Really wrong. The fissure inside him was splintering under the agony, the flow of memories heaving behind the dam he'd created to block it all off. He could feel it, churning beneath the tight vortex of pain in his stomach. The burning lump of coal in his heart, about to implode in on itself. He was going to remember. He desperately held the tide back.

"Rogue." He needed her help, more than he ever had done. He reached for her, finding her arms, clutching them. The sobbing stopped. He felt her, vaguely, hovering somewhere above him.

"Ah'm here, cowboy," she returned shakily. "Right here. Focus, sugah. You can do it. Your mind's free of your body. It don't have t' take the pain. Let the meat deal with that. Focus."

"Can't," he muttered. But he was, somehow. The green tide was steadying. Just that bright spot inside of him…

"Shhh," she whispered. It took a phenomenal force of will to even begin to attempt to regulate his breathing. She saw him struggling, and eased her arms out of his grip, knotting her fingers into his own. He felt her squeezing his hands, gentle, encouraging. "Tell me your name," she urged him, her voice barely a notch above a whisper.

"My name?" he echoed, confused.

"Your name. Your old one. Tell me what it was."

He sucked in a quivering breath, remembered.

"Remy." With that single strange, alien word, he felt the floodgate open, the memories sift like silt through a sieve, the displaced conglomeration of muddled sensation shifting, rearranging itself into one, smooth, complete tract of whole. Stark uniformity. He half sobbed, allowing himself to crawl back into the skin he had discarded what seemed a lifetime ago. His old life, broken wide open, the lie he had been trying to run away from ever since he had got here.

"Remy," she repeated reflectively. "Remy."

She said it with an edge, with a modicum of familiarity, making it sound as if it really could have been his. He wept.

-oOo-

It must've been an hour later when the world swam into focus again, when the pain had disintegrated, when he had stopped shuddering from the brutality of the experience. Pain and memory, intrinsically tied. Falling out the apple tree as a boy. Scent of the bayous in high summer. The Creoles singing hymns.  _J'irai la voir un jour… Maman_  hurtling across the room, blood streaking wetly across the air in her wake. Cowering in a cupboard,  _creak, creak, creak_ ; poppa filling up the crack in the door, calling for his little bastard, plank of wood in hand. Then: bolting, running, just running. Years of delinquency in Nawlins before the head honcho had taken him to New York. Predilection for smoking Camels, bad habit inherited from the fraternity of criminals into which he had been irreverently initiated. First time with some skinny, waif-faced girl by the name of Ruth. Lies, all lies.

"Oh God…" he whimpered.

She was beside him, rubbing his bicep gently.

"Hurts," she agreed. An edge of sympathy to her voice.

"Yah." Though not so much, not anymore. Like breaking on through, to the other side. Obstacle shattered. "So intense," he murmured, falling into the comforting rhythm of her hand on his arm. "It was all like… I really lived it."

Her fingers squeezed his arm. Encouragement. Understanding. "Tell me about it," she said.

He did. She listened, silent, her hand never leaving his arm. Only his voice in the darkness, the solitary drone an ode to the sprawling masterpiece of his life, an edifice of falsities and fabrications piled precariously one on top of the other. When he had finished she remained quiet, an unmoving silhouette in the blackness. He rolled onto his back.

"And you?" he asked her hoarsely.

Her outline shrugged.

"Marie. Runaway. Pickpocket. Workin' girl from the age of sixteen." She said the words as if reading off a cold list of facts. "Oh yeah, Ah was your kinda girl all right. We would've been dynamite, back then."

Always had been. He refrained from saying it. "Marie, eh?" he mused instead. "Dat your real name, or your professional one?"

Pause, implying a wealth of locked secrets. "Doesn't matter. Doesn't mean jack anyway. 'Bout as real as callin' a horse with a horn a unicorn, or a lizard with wings a dragon."

He still sensed an edge of regret.

"An' Magnus?"

Sigh, soft and faint as a whisper.

"Saw me gettin' beatin' on by a john. Came in all chivalric like, just the way Ah like 'em. Took me to some safehouse, patched me up, treated me like a normal human bein'. Real easy to fall for him then. He was goin' t' let me go, but Ah had no one else." Her fingers rested motionless on his arm, leaving a tingling imprint on his nerves. "Ah told him wherever he went Ah'd follow. Ah was a dab hand on the streets by then. Guess he figured Ah could hack the truth. So… he took me out. Treated me like Ah was his daughter." Soft, mirthless chuckle. "Ah was a kid, an' Ah wanted more. Couldn't get used t' bein' without a man, y'know? An' Magnus was a good man. Never beat me. Never forced himself on me. Never roughed me up when Ah spoke mah mind." Her fingers shifted, disappearing into the night. "Life was better out in the real world."

He said nothing, understanding. Magnus' over-protectiveness was suddenly cast in a different light. He found her arm, stroked it. Fine down on her skin, so soft. The pain was malleable now, a warm glow. Here, in the dark, in the quiet, lost in the comfort of illusory touch, it was almost pleasant.

"Y'wanna know how I got unplugged?" he asked, after a moment.

"Y' already told me," she replied. "Logan."

" _Non_. Before dat. How I knew. Why they came after me." Deep breath. "I saw a glitch."

"Y' saw a glitch an' you were plugged in?" Empathy, compassion in her voice.

"Yeah." He half-smiled at the freshly resurrected memory, bitter wonder touching the corners of his mouth, an expression she could not see. "Fifteen. I was small fry, back then. Got myself caught by some jockey on enemy territory. De guy chased me blocks, but I was a kid, kids run fast. Some back alley in Harlem. Saw dis rose stickin' out of de concrete, real unnatural like, t'ought I was seein' t'ings. Was unreal. Y'know, like in dat song…?"

Ghost of a nod.

"Most goddamn beautiful thing I ever saw," he breathed, closing his eyes and remembering. "Blood red, almost black. Like if you could prick it, it'd start bleedin'. Den it just disappeared. Fuzzed out, y'know, de way programs do? Days after, couldn't get it out of my head, couldn't eat or sleep. Like my mind had been blown wide open. I knew den. Fuckin' hell, I knew." He opened his eyes. "Never saw nothin' like dat again."

"Funny." Her voice was light, almost cajoling. "Y' always told me Ah was the most beautiful thing you ever saw."

He grinned. "You come in a close second."

He sensed her smile, brief, like a candle flickering out. Her arm stirred, as if for the first time she realised that he touched it. Then: "You should've let me go," she said, plaintive. His hand dropped from her arm, rested over her palm. The recollection that he'd hidden away, of that day, in her room, her kiss searing against his lips… No, no dream. His mouth was suddenly dry, his body aching.

"Y' told me you loved me," he replied. "No woman I met ever said dat t' me. Was I supposed to let go?"

Hesitation. "Ah didn't want t' hurt him." The words belied the trembling of her mouth.

" _Chere_ , when you met him, you were just a  _fille_. You were frightened, lost, alone. You needed him. But you a grown woman now. An' things change. Dat day, in your room, nothin' ever felt so right as when you told me…" He halted. The memory was so clear now, it perplexed him that he'd ever forgotten it.

"That night you brought him back from Tokyo," she confessed slowly, "he was goin' t' let me go. Said he only wanted me t' be happy. Ah begged him not to. Guilt, Gambit, the goddamn guilt. For so long, he was the only thing Ah had, the only thing that ever treated me right. An' he was mah husband. The choice didn't seem so hard then."

"Choice, what choice?" he mumbled. "From de start we were always so goddamn obvious." He remembered first laying eyes upon her, the confused familiarity. "It's been three years, Rogue," he continued, quieter, "an' I ain't gonna wait no more. Remember the first day we met? Three goddamn years. Ain't never felt dat way, not before or since."

He reached out, touching her cheek. Soft, subtle touch. Not her skin, only a replica, but close enough. This was all he had ever wanted anyway. She clasped his hand between her own, kissed his knuckles, the joints of his fingers, her lips lingering, so smooth, so warm… He moaned softly, pulling her down against his chest, feeling the suppleness of her body under the cotton shirt as she yielded, pressing kisses along the line of his jaw, grazing her nose playfully against his stubble before bringing her lips down against his, exploring his mouth with sudden need. He responded, pulling her closer, fingers in soft, scented hair, legs reaching for hers in the darkness.

The embrace, nothing more than cold, callous binary code, cascading down a computer screen; but as they pulled apart, as she cradled against him and sighed and fell into a deep sleep, nothing had ever felt more real in his entire life.

-oOo-

The sound of rainfall pattering on the windowpane greeted him the next day, drawing him out of coma-like unconsciousness. He shifted, confused, the frayed edges of his injury licking at his solar plexus. He felt groggy. Not in agony, just groggy. His body was pulsing from his mid-section upward. His throat felt brittle.

Rogue, Marie – whoever the hell she was – was lying beside him on the bed, fully clothed and back in her leathers, one arm slung over his midriff. He closed his eyes, willing back the dull throbbing in his temples, telling himself it was all immaterial; the time-worn defence-mechanism. He remembered last night, the need of her kisses. Oh God. The taste of her was still on his tongue, like the thick, metallic tang of sleep.

Was unreal, Rogue, he thought. Totally un-fucking-real.

His eyes wandered to the window, perused the square canvas that had come to frame his fevered waking hours. Same sullen skies. Colourless as the room itself. Apart from a bunch of crimson roses, arranged neatly in a glass vase on her bedside table. He stared at them, catching their scent on the breeze coming in through the open window. Lush, somnolent almost. Like drugs. Not real, he told himself sternly.

"Rogue," he grunted. "Rogue, you 'wake?"

She opened one green eye, smiled. "Never was asleep, cowboy," she answered. Her hand slid across his waist, imprinting his bewildered senses with something warm and smooth as batwings. Then she sat up, shrugging the fatigue from her shoulders. "Ah was worried you'd flatline," she explained too evenly, too neutrally. As if to make an excuse for the fact that she had touched him, held him close. "Wanted t' be close by."

He swallowed, not knowing what to say. Last night was still hidden behind an almost impenetrable shroud of both pain and bliss.

"You got them?" he asked, nodding over at the roses on the table.

"Uh-huh," she answered, stretching, reaching her toes with the tips of her fingers. "For you. Thought they'd make you feel better." She paused as if suddenly embarrassed, looked back over her shoulder at him. "How  _are_  you feelin'?"

"Thirsty," he admitted.

"Don't worry," she replied, stretching out beside him again, head cradled in her hand as she looked at him. "Logan came in this mornin'. Said they'd reach us by this evenin'. All we've gotta do is keep our mind off all the physical shit. Meat's meat, sugah. Mind's mind."

"Physical shit." He laughed weakly. For a moment back there, he'd almost kidded himself into believing her touch, her kisses, had been real. "Last night…" He faltered.

"Ah know," she murmured, jaw tightening as she looked away. "Ah wish it was real too."

"Real compared t' what?" he asked. She didn't answer. Her collarbones tensed above the black bodice. It reminded him of a crossbow he'd once seen in the inner sanctum of the head honcho in old New York. Guy liked to collect them. PPKs were disposable, functional killing machines, but swords, daggers, lances, longbows, crossbows – they were all works of art. The crossbow he'd seen had been old, medieval, the real thing restored to its former glory, polished and hung up like a stuffed stag's head. There'd been something elegant, graceful about it. Like her collarbone. He bit back on the memory. Lies. "I dunno,  _chere_. It felt goddamn real t' me," he finished.

Her mouth twisted.

"Ah used to have a dream," she began softly, contemplatively, "of bein' with you." She paused, ruminating. "Ah guess this ain't much different." Green eyes lifted to his, her glance grave and inquisitive, the face she must have worn all those years ago when Magnus had first met her. Child-woman. Without words her hand snaked back to his bare waist, curious, child-like, slipping under the waistband of his boxers, stroking him, making him groan.

"Rogue…" he breathed.

No more questing. She moved to straddle him, unzipping the bodice while he fumbled with the zipper of her pants, fingers uncoordinated. She touched his hands briefly with her own, pushed them away.

"S'okay," she assured him. "Let me."

He'd never seen her naked before. Her body was thin, elegant, economical, fluent and streamlined as art deco architecture, her skin luminescent in the watery sunlight. She watched him silently as he tasted the texture of her skin on his hands, the unfamiliar contours that, nevertheless, felt achingly familiar to him and always had done. There was a scar on her left breast, long and sharp, a knife-wound. He thumbed it lightly, considering.

"Feels like I've seen dis before," he murmured.

"A john gave it t' me," she explained softly. "An Hispanic joe. Thought Ah was goin' t' die. That's when Magnus came." She moved his hand away, to her hip; her expression was stoic. "Mind made it real."

She pushed him back against the covers gently and he pulled her down with him, groaning as their skin connected, as her nipples pressed urgently into his chest and he brought their mouths into feverish union. He reached downward, finding her soft folds, sliding in, familiarising himself with her. Slick, warm. She whimpered at the intimacy of his touch, breaking their kiss as he stroked her, long, languid, and she leaned into his caress, body arching, breath quickening, punctuating the flinty slap of the rainfall outside, the whirlwind, the whirlpool.

It was all cyclic, life funnelling life, old to new. The Oracle had once told him:  _As your old life begins, so it ends_. The scar on her breast, that was old life; the rose in the concrete, that too was nothing more than a symbol, a crossroads he had passed, long ago. A fine line, like death. He wondered about her old life; he wondered that he knew so little about her; he wondered that he knew enough. That he had always known enough, so much more than what was contained in three years worth, and he didn't know why. He didn't know why her breath in his ear felt so familiar, nor the softness of her hair in his hands, nor the way she moved against him, nor the delicacy of her touch as she guided him past wet thighs and into the molten core of her.

Synthetic synthesis.

He'd been here before.

All the countless hours bleeding into this one moment, this endless error where she made love to him and he to her, and he knew with calm certainty that he had been here before, that he had trodden all those idle hours a million times before, in another life, in another story.

-oOo-

He stirred only in the evening as she rolled away from him, jarred into wakefulness by the loss of the now familiar warmth of her curled against his side. His senses were confounded by an acute and synaesthetic onslaught of memory – shapes, sounds, textures, colours. The symmetry of her body in the pallid sunlight as she had straddled him; their communal groan as he had entered her; the taste of her kisses and the liquid embrace of her tongue; the white-hot intensity of their shared orgasm as it had shuddered through them. None of it more or less real than a dream; but this time, a memory worth keeping.

She was sitting on the windowsill, naked, hand extended, catching raindrops. He watched her a long moment before sliding out of bed himself. His body protested, but he felt strangely lighter, unburdened. Detached. He joined her at the windowsill, watching her catch the rain, her expression questioning.

"It all seems so real," she mused, withdrawing her hand, palm wet.

"Yeah," he agreed, pulling her into his embrace and kissing her hair tenderly. "Real work of art." For the first time he saw the world outside the window. That patch of ashen sky, now an expanse, unfolding out over the grey-green masonry of the city, the backdrop to a drab and foreboding masterpiece. Below them was a stone courtyard, its only source of colour a bed of ponderous red roses, as if the sky had bled onto a barren earth.

"You picked them yourself?" he questioned.

"Ah asked Logan to," she replied. "You said they were beautiful. Ah just figured, maybe this was the last time you'd ever see them."

He was oddly touched. Reaching out beside him, he plucked a stem from the vase on the bedside table, held it against her, looking on in fascination at the contrast between creamy skin and blood red bloom.

"Is this really it, then?" she asked him. "Is this for real, Remy?"

Remy? Why did she keep on talking to that part of him, the part he had discarded what seemed a lifetime ago?

"What?" he asked. "You still thinkin' love is all ones and zeros in dis place?" He paused, trailing the rose downward, smoothing the petals across the underside of her breast, circling upward to tease softly against the dark bud of her nipple; simple perfection, not natural, not even man-made, but perfect nonetheless. "When we get back," he began reflectively, "I show you dis is for real."

The rain suddenly intensified, running against their arms and their cheeks, making them smile.

"I take it all back," he decided, at last, raising the blossom to her cheek. "No rose I ever saw compared t' you."

He was finally beginning to understand. The bloom he had seen that day in Harlem, it had signalled the end of his old life; and in giving the roses to him, she had signalled the end of this life. Now they would go on to a new life, a life where they would face this brave new world together.

Wordlessly he tossed the rose out of the window, into the breeze, watching it flutter down to the pavement below, to the place where he had first seen it grow. In the rain, in the growing darkness, they drew closer without thinking, instinctive as birds flying home to nest.

Across the room, the phone began to ring.

-oOo-

* * *

_Next: "Touch & Go" - two enemies are forced to reach an unlikely compromise …_


	5. Touch & Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All she wants is love; all he wants is understanding. Can two enemies come to an unlikely compromise?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is based on one of the Ages of Apocalypse (yup, those crappy stories not worth anyone's money), Uncanny X-Men #378 in fact. It had a nice setting for a concept that's been bugging me lately, namely, the nature of Rogue's touch. Enjoy.

Beside him, on the black leather passenger seat of the taxi, Remy's cellphone began to ring. He picked it up and looked at it – there, in stark capitals, the screen read, BELLE. He frowned, his natural inclination to switch the whole damn thing off. Nevertheless, for some inner logic quite unknown to him – and perhaps out of a lingering sense of duty – he accepted the call and held the phone to his ear.

"Remy." Her voice was breathless, thin and watery, betraying both her tears and her desperation. "Remy, you've got t' come back. I  _love_  you. Please, let's just try an' work dis out."

"Belle," he expelled her name on a quick, agitated breath. "I'm already in de taxi. I'll be at de airport in half an hour, an' I won't be comin' back. I'm fed up Belle. Of everythin'. Of us, of dis whole X-Men gig, of every damn t'ing. Don't try t' call me, an' don't come lookin' for me. It's final. G'bye, Belle."

He switched off the phone, dropped it into his coat pocket along with his cigarettes, then leant back into the car seat with a violent sigh. This was it – the end; release, escape. He wasn't going to surrender his life to anyone anymore! Not to his wife, not to the X-Men, not to anyone! He was going to race out of the past four years of madness and back into the arms of the life he had once disclaimed, the life of freedom and delinquent irresponsibility, his own comfortable niche in the criminal food-chain. No more! The end! From now on the only person he was going to answer to was himself.

Belle, the X-Men; all love, morality, responsibility… Left behind. Gone.

Closing his eyes with a weary sigh, he slept…

 

He awoke not long after from a recurring dream; a dream he would never remember, that was never finished. Sitting up straight he wiped his mouth with his hand, looking out the window. The world outside was indistinct, speeding away from him, taking away with it all petty hurts, confusions, frustrations, the past four years he had wasted masquerading as something he was not. Now he was going back home – he was going back to the life and the skin he had always felt most comfortable in, that of the thief. It was a life that had ended abruptly the day he'd tried to pick the pocket of a certain Professor Charles Xavier when he was eighteen, a man who had taken him away from a life of squalor and made him the first pupil of his Institute for Gifted Youngsters. Behind the respectable facade of the school, however, lay a world as secret and shrouded as the one Remy himself had not long emerged from. He was soon to learn of the Professor's dream of harmony between human and mutantkind – and of the X-Men, whom he, along with Hank McCoy, Bobby Drake, Ororo Munroe and Jean Grey, was to serve, as its first recruit and leader.

Back then, Remy had been young, idealistic, newly married, and had wanted to make an honest man of himself. It was less for his sake than for that of his wife and childhood sweetheart, Belladonna – she'd long harboured dreams of white picket fences and two point four children – although going to the Institute hadn't exactly turned out to be what he'd had in mind when he'd told her he was going to get a decent education. Still, the thrill of playing the superhero had bitten him hard, and after a year, he'd been too committed to break free. Thinking Belle would be none too pleased at his extra-curricular activities, he'd made a conscious decision to keep the truth from her, which, of course, had made the whole sorry affair more disastrous once the truth came out.

Belladonna was a mystery to him. Although he loved her, and loved her dearly, she was as impervious to him as solid rock. He loved her more than he'd ever loved anyone or anything – but then, he was the kind of man who had had little love in his life and didn't really know what to do with it. So he loved her, yet he did not understand her. And likewise, she did not understand him. They were two people from two different worlds, brought together by a bond tempered by a tempestuous childhood they had both shared, a life where the only stability they had been able to find lay in each other.

Her conception of him was as it always had been – a simple, uncomplicated little boy with the eyes of the devil and a combustible, contagious smile that was both charming and dangerous; he was a boy who became a man whose shape she had already preconfigured in her own mind. By that time, she had grown under his skin, and he under hers – their attachment had been forged and sealed. Yet her understanding of him remained so limited, so confined to one single point in time that when he was with her he began to think he did not know himself – and when he tried to find himself in other women, he found he could not give the entirety of himself to any of them, and so none of them could comprehend the whole that was Remy LeBeau anymore than Belle could.

No good – he would ponder on it no longer. It was all over and done with; he had to let it go. The taxi stopped outside the airport with a jolt, jarring him out of all inner reflections. He got out, paid the fare, picked up his bags, looked up at the grey and imposing edifice that was the airport. No turning back. From now on there could be no more lies; no false regrets.

-oOo-

The flight down to Louisiana was cramped and tedious; it was also non-smoking, which grated on his already frayed nerves. He managed to distract himself with some desultory conversation with the girl sitting next to him – a redhead with freckles, a newly graduated college-student. She was flirtatious and talked a lot; her smile was dimpled. Presently the conversation became somewhat suggestive and Remy sensed that perhaps something more would come of their banter; he slipped the wedding ring off his finger without her even noticing, and secreted it inside his pocket.

After a while their conversation dwindled, each satisfied with the promise of a further encounter once the plane had landed. In the ensuing silence his cravings were once more allowed to resurface – the glaring light of no-smoking sign became an unbearable torture to him, and presently he excused himself, thinking perhaps a splash of cold water on his face would relieve him. As he made for the bathroom, a woman came down the aisle towards him; he stopped, shifting sideways to let her pass. She too slipped sideways, but the gangway was so narrow their hips connected as if suddenly magnetised – his eyes raised to hers, hers to his – red to green. Her hair was thick and auburn, cascading down over the shoulders of a threadbare, antique carpet coat; she wore tight black pants, a green silk shirt, 80s-style ankle boots. An unruly lock of white hair had been tucked behind one ear, but now slipped free as their gazes locked involuntarily for a single split second that lasted a lifetime.

"Hi," she said, at last.

"Hi," he replied.

She slid past him without another word, grazing her hips meaningfully against his before turning away and carrying along down the aisle to take her seat three rows down from him. He stared after her, momentarily dumbfounded.  _Wow_.

He made his way to the bathroom, his confounded mind and body both caught in sensory overdrive. Once inside he splashed his face with some cold water, leant back against the door, and pondered heavily on this latest chance meeting.

Rogue.

She was no stranger to him, of course. In fact, he knew her pretty well – as much as adversaries could anyhow. She was a member of Magneto's Brotherhood, a group whose militant activities had brought them into constant conflict with the X-Men. Her being on the same flight could only mean one thing – she had to be tailing him, and it had to be for some mission Magneto had sent her on. But as to the nature of the mission, and why it should be necessary to follow him all the way to Louisiana, Remy was, for now, in the dark.

One thing was certain. Her presence had ruined his vacation, and if he had ever planned to clear his head of all things X-Men or Belle related, having a mutant terrorist on his case was  _not_  the way to go about it.

The rest of the flight passed uneventfully; he caught glimpses of Rogue several times at her seat in front of him – her white streak made easy work of that. But there was no further encounter. By the time the plane had landed and they'd disembarked, he'd lost sight of her completely and she was nowhere to be found. That fact instilled little confidence in him, and he was jumpy all the way through passport control and baggage retrieval. Still, she made no appearance – it was as if she'd vanished. He walked out the airport suddenly remembering the redhead, but she too had left in disappointment long ago, and was also nowhere in sight. Feeling somewhat cheated, he called for a cab, still ruminating on Rogue's unexpected arrival. He'd never thought much of her – even Magneto preferred to keep her on the fringes of his group. He wondered whether that was because he didn't find much use in her, or because she herself preferred to take a back seat. It was certainly the first time that Remy had ever seen her up close and personal.

He leaned an elbow against the taxi window, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, remembering the electricity in their brief but eloquent collision. The movement of her hips against his. He shook his head in wonder.

 _Wow_.

-oOo-

It was more than a two hour drive to Holly Beach, and by the time he'd arrived there he was exhausted and in need of a shower. The beach house was light and airy, decorated in a modern minimalist style, all glass and chrome and cream-coloured walls – his bachelor pad, the place he'd used as a hideaway before he'd signed his life away to Belle's. Since then he'd had it done up, and rented it to rich, old couples in the summer. He had an odd sensation of displacement, standing in the middle of a house so extravagant – though he was by no means poor, and had a great eye for all things rare, antique, or expensive, his own personal tastes were more comfortable, functional and homely.

He decided to settle himself in the smallest bedroom in the house – it was sparsely furnished, but completely suited to his needs. He unpacked what little items he had brought with him, took off his jacket, threw it over onto the bed. In doing so, the wedding ring fell out of the pocket, glanced off the edge of the bed and onto the wooden floor, circling twice before landing in the middle of the room. He stared at it a long moment, thinking of Belle, thinking of the infidelity he'd planned on the plane, feeling somehow oddly relieved that it had never happened. Nevertheless, it still did not change the way things stood between him and his wife. With a sigh he picked up the ring and threw it into the drawer of his bedside table, intent on a week or two of drink, thievery, womanising, and not a single rational thought in between.

He showered, dressed. When he got back into the bedroom, he noticed an unusual fragrance on the air, a lone trespasser on alien territory. He frowned, sniffing. Lavender, mixed with tobacco. Now where had he smelled that scent before… …?

Ah.

"All right, Roguey," he called aloud, arms crossed, expression sardonic. "You can come out now. Plannin' t' jump me, were you? Come on,  _chere_ , we can sort dis out all nice an' civil-like,  _non_?"

She emerged from behind him, unexpected, with such silent and feline precision that he realised only a split second too late. In a trice she'd launched herself at him, bowling him over onto the wooden floor; she followed him down to the ground as he swivelled round onto his back to face her, his fist swinging up to connect with her face just before he recognised his fatal error – any flesh-to-flesh contact with her, and he was out for the count. But to his surprise she caught his hand before he could strike her, tan-gloved fingers seizing his fist, keeping him in the bout.

"How'd you know Ah was here?" she asked, breathless, a playful grin lighting her face as she clamped strong thighs about his hips, imprisoning him somewhat gratuitously beneath her. He returned the smile, wrenching his hand from her grasp.

"Simple,  _chere_." He clutched her hips with both hands, swivelled round, taking her with him. With a wordless cry she yielded, the back of her head thudding against the floor as she found herself trapped as he had been. "Your scent." He leaned in, clasping her arms to stop them from flailing, and she squirmed underneath him, only serving to heighten the delicious tension between them. "So you gonna tell me what makes me worth de effort of bein' stalked 'cross several states, hmm?" he inquired conversationally. She struggled, her playfulness dissipating as she realised with frustration the way he'd so quickly turned the tables on her.

"If Ah told you, would you let me go?" she asked him insolently. He grinned suavely at her, putting every ounce of charm he could into the smile as he perused her, bringing his face within an inch of hers.

"I dunno,  _p'tit_ , I think I'm likin' dis position a helluva lot," he murmured seductively.

Her eyes flickered, dimmed.

"You're charmin' me, y' low-life Cajun swamp-rat," she half remonstrated, half purred; half fought, half surrendered. Her voice was low, thick.

"But o' course,  _p'tit_. A beautiful woman like yourself, what man couldn't help but…"

He was cut off mid-sentence, sent reeling by the powerful force of a resounding right hook to his left jaw. In a matter of moments he was pinned once more underneath her.

"Sorry sugah, but bullshit like that ain't gonna work on me," she informed him caustically. Against his hips he felt the muscles pulsing in her thighs; her elbow dug sharply into his throat. "This gal ain't the kind t' go slaverin' after some slippery Cajun swamp snake, not like that redhead on the plane."

"So how comes you didn't take me out when you had de chance?" he retorted breathlessly, intrigued at the degree to which she'd been watching him. "Y' coulda just let me touch you,  _chere_  – or did y' just want for us t' have a l'il tumble on de floor t'gether, y'know, engage in a l'il bit o' horseplay?"

She hissed in exasperation, knowing the extent to which he'd outdone her.

"Damn you, Cajun!" she seethed. "You're enjoyin' every minute of this!"

His smile was wolfish, predatory. "Gambit never complains when his woman's on top," he returned outrageously. She went suddenly pale at the suggestion, green eyes filmed with confusion, confusion and distress as she realised how he had outmanoeuvred her. The pressure of her elbow against his throat slackened, and she hesitated, not knowing how to react. He read the signals, precise, imperceptible; his right hand slid in under her coat, touched her waist, moved upward to brush against her breast. Beneath cool silk, against his hips, her body and thighs trembled involuntarily; a gasp escaped her lips unbidden. Her elbow tightened at his throat again, but the movement was perfunctory, uncertain.

"Ah could touch you," she warned, but now her face was so close to his they could taste one another's breath, and without intending it, her threat became a proposition.

"Maybe I wouldn't mind," he murmured in reply, seeing the way her eyes clouded at the contact of their gaze, at the unfamiliarity of his touch, at the warmth of his lips only inches from hers…

A chain reaction had begun; neither was wilfully conscious of it, not in a manner intrinsic to reason, or logic. Rogue jerked back, achingly aware of a terrifying and nameless commitment she had made, as if taking the first step towards a destination unknown. Her countenance suddenly betrayed both consternation and perplexity at their unexpected chemistry.

She scrambled off him, breaking their contact.

"You're crazy," she muttered, standing up and brushing herself off, still visibly trembling. "Ah touch you, you end up in a coma."

"Funny, I got de impression dat puttin' me in a coma was what you were here for," he remarked, rising to face her. She shot him a look, her eyes meeting his only briefly before she stole them away again. He sensed that she was distressed by the sudden and undeniable attraction that had so abruptly sprung between them. He frowned, finding her reticence both bewildering and amusing.

"You don't know nothin' about it," she levelled, baring her teeth at him.

"Dat's true enough," he agreed. "All I know is, I meet you on de plane, and den you follow me here. But dat pretty much speaks for itself,  _non_? Magneto sent you, didn't he."

Her green eyes narrowed.

"Ah don't have t' tell you anythin'," she spat.

" _Non_. I guess you don't." He considered her a long while, marking the turn of her countenance, revising the memory of her body against his. She was beautiful, but it was a beauty she wore self-consciously, as if she was at a loss to know what to make of it. He found her artlessness appealing, but then, he would have been the first to admit that he found most sorts of women attractive. "But maybe you want to," he finished decidedly.

She passed him a look, half-questioning, half-interrogative, opening the way to compromise. He made no reply. Instead he casually lit himself a cigarette, then, remembering the scent on her, he offered her one. She took it warily, then slipped it inside a filter. When he lit the cigarette for her, he came in close, almost allowing their bodies to synchronise the way they had on the plane, holding her eyes, waiting longer than was necessary for the cigarette to light. The moment was highly charged, erotic. There was something about her, about her face, unreadable yet betraying an inner sadness… And about her eyes, about the way they challenged him to see past her and into the stranger locked inside. The stranger… Yet why did he find her so familiar…?

"Why do you keep starin' at me like that?" she asked, removing the cigarette from between her lips and blowing smoke between them as though to fend him off.

"Just tryin' t' work out why you'd come here an' den let me off de hook,  _p'tit_ ," he answered huskily.  _Those eyes…_  He took a step back, gave her a lop-sided smile. "Shall I tell you what Gambit thinks?" Her mouth remained flat and he didn't wait for an answer. "Gambit thinks Mags sent you t' carry out a mission, an' you were gonna do it straight, no questions asked." He took the cigarette out of his mouth made a gesture with his hand. "But somethin' happened on de plane, didn't it? Somethin' dat disrupted your little plan." He paused, allowing his voice to drop a note, his eyes to burn. "You realised dat I had somethin' you wanted."

A short breath caught in her throat, fluttered; she expelled it quickly, audibly, saying nothing, but it was enough to give her away, enough to tell him he'd spoken the truth. He smiled in self-congratulation, moving to circle her as a predator stalking its prey, closing in, brushing his shoulder against hers, stepping behind her. As he leant in towards her ear, he scented the auburn curls of her hair, feeling the soft tendrils caress his face.

"You weren't bankin' on it, were you, Rogue?" he whispered, trailing his breath on her neck, the low, seductive purr sending tremors through her limbs. "What happened on de plane was mere chance, completely unforeseen… You know what I'm talkin' about, right? We both felt it, didn't we. You just wanted somethin' more,  _non_? De reason why I'm still standin' right here, right now, dis close t' you… is b'cause you want me to."

She was still trembling, from pleasure at his closeness, from anger that he should find her so transparent. At the final statement she whipped round to find he'd taken a step away from her again, as silent and ephemeral as a wraith; the memory of his breath on her neck played upon her nerves as if he had plucked every single string in her body.

"Damn you," she cursed, but there was an edge of helplessness to her voice, a quivering desperation. He ignored it.

"What's dis game you been sent t' play, Rogue?" he asked her bluntly, tired of fencing with her. "Why did you come here? An' what does Magneto want wit' me?"

Normally, she would have refrained from answering him, but now their attraction was a palpable thing, and she could no longer deny it. She crossed her arms tightly about her, as if they could offer her some sort of self-defence from him. Her eyes went hard, refusing to meet his as she finally gave in.

"Magneto got it into his head that Ah could imprint people permanently," she explained grudgingly, after a moment's hesitation. "He figured…maybe Ah could imprint the powers of the X-Men and make them mine. That maybe…Ah could use those powers against y'all." She paused, uncertainty on her face, the whiff of indecision in her enough for him to read the deception in her words.

 _She's lyin'_ , he thought.  _But why else would she come here? Dere's somethin' else here, somethin' else she ain't tellin' me…_

"And you'd be willin' t' take such a risk?" he asked her, one eyebrow raised sceptically. "Couldn't a permanent imprint be harmful t' you?"

She shot him a look. "Ah don't know," she replied after a moment. "Ah never tried it. But maybe… Perhaps…"

They fell into silence, another bout fought, the clash of wills withdrawn, the both of them retreating back to reassess the situation. Both now knew the score, the impasse for which there was only one conclusion. Remy drew on his cigarette, said very calmly: "So. How can I convince you t' go back t' New York an' leave me alone intact, hm?"

She was suddenly composed again, her face a mask of equanimity, revealing nothing, sealing off anything he might have espied in her green-eyed glance before.

"Don't play with me, Cajun," she replied coolly. "You said you felt it too. Therefore…" and her smile was tight-lipped, "you must  _know_  what Ah want."

He shrugged, passed her an easy smile.

"Maybe we could come t' some sort of agreement."

"Maybe we could."

"Name it," he said.

Her green eyes raised to his furtively, the play of sunlight on auburn hair, the flash of a breath in her throat, the mirror image of a moment replayed constantly in that dream he always had, the one he'd never remember in the morning…

"Let me pretend that Ah'm your girl," she said, and this time her gaze did not falter from his. "Just for one day, let me pretend that Ah'm yours."

Ah.

-oOo-

For the longest time afterwards he would look back on this day, mentally attempting to dissect every little detail of it. Much later – when his life had changed once more and he was old and wise enough to reconcile himself to it – he would give up on his analysis, because it would always be missing a certain part of the equation which, at the time, he had never bothered to acquaint himself with. Namely, the woman inside the disguise that was Rogue.

Isn't it strange how two people can spend a day together in the most intimate of circumstances and never learn a thing about one another?

From the outset he was fated never to discover much about her. From the very beginning all she would impart to him were half-hidden truths, veiled glances, inscrutable expressions, facts that left him no closer to discovering her inner machinery, the clockwork that made her tick. She fell into her role with a stoic nonchalance – he had the vague impression that while she acted her part she was performing some sort of private drama within her head, something so personal and intrinsic to her being that he could not even glimpse it in the subtle shading of her countenance. She was the starring role in her own tragedy – he, a mere actor; his house, her set. She cooked him an abominable meal, washed dishes, rearranged the study, cleaned the bathroom, placed all his clothes away in drawers and cupboards – she had a penchant for colour coordination that he found both baffling and unnecessary. In return he taught her to play poker, to cook gumbo, to waltz, and later, he walked her down to the beach. By this time, there wasn't a lot he had learned about her, save that she was born in Caldecott County, Mississippi, that she shopped in thrift stores, that she liked the sea, and that the only thing they seemed to share in common was a partiality for coffee and cigarettes. And then there was the way her body moved against his…

Nevertheless he learnt more about her as the day progressed: - that wherever she sat she would sit cross-legged; that she liked port where he liked bourbon; that she never used her knife when she ate; that she disliked eye contact when she spoke; that  _that_  offensive lock of white hair had a perpetual habit of falling onto her face. All these were inexact signals and brought him no closer to discovering what the real Rogue was truly like. Each new thing he learned led only to his own private and subtle reinventions of her. On deeper reflection – which he would only indulge in later – the greatest clue to her character lay in the bargain she had made with him. She was lonely, untouched, an unplayed instrument. She was a passionate and romantic woman for whom passion and romance could never become a reality, a woman whose passions must remain fantasies, and for whom their pretence was the ultimate fantasy, one that had no substance and no conclusion, for in the end, he could give her nothing.

Rogue, however, seemed quite content to play out the fantasy – this was the furthest she had ever got to realising it, after all. She was quite happy to ensconce herself on his sofa and watch the entirety of  _Gone with the Wind_ , which he found to be the height of tedium. It did, however, afford them time for contemplation, to watch one another from the sidelines. He found himself questioning his fascination with her, why he relished the hypocritical nature of their masquerade so much. Was it that their relationship, such as it was, was stark and uncomplicated in its arrangement, and would always remain so? Was it because he would never discover any more of her than what he saw now; that when the day was over she would remain to him as insubstantial and transient as a ghost, as a trace of perfume caught but fleetingly on the breeze?

It seemed irrational to him, that he should be running from the woman he loved and yet find himself here, sitting next to another woman, one who held no points of comparison to Belle at all, except that he understood neither of them – and yet he was drawn to Rogue, and he had no idea why.

"Why do you keep lookin' at me like that?" she asked him, halfway through the movie. He caught himself mid-ogle, his reverie interrupted.

"You're a beautiful woman," he found himself saying, for the first time without artifice, so that he was shocked by his own sincerity. She, however, laughed and shifted sideways to face him, her expression artfully coy. "Don't you wish you could sleep with me?" she asked – or rather challenged – him.

"I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't," he answered, straight-faced. She smiled, for his admission pleased her. She'd paused a moment, looking down at his hand, which lay on the sofa between them. His fingers were long – elegant, artistic, sensitive. The hands of a thief, of a lover. She found them the most interesting things about him.

"So what is it that you  _really_ want out of this?" she asked him curiously, capturing his eyes once more. The entire day she had asked no tokens of him, and he in turn had asked none of her – this was the first inquiry she had made into his own private world.

"I dunno," he replied, shrugging – he thought of Belle, of his infidelities, of how far apart they had grown. If Rogue had been another woman, he would have wanted nothing more than to sleep with her; but she was unattainable, and so his real need became plain to him. He sighed, ran a finger over the diamond pattern stitched into her glove. "I guess what I want… Is t' be understood."

She laughed. "Ah don't know a thing about you," she said. Apart from his name, the place where he had grown up, the family of thieves that had fostered him… she knew nothing else.

"I guess that makes us equal," he replied. Silence. Stalemate. There was nothing she wanted to give him of herself, and there was nothing more she needed from him – except that she had the sudden desire to put his hand on her, to guide him to all the secret places, to feel him feel her. For half a moment there was an invitation in his eyes and she thought she would reach out, take his hand and place it upon the space where she ached…  _He wants it too,_  she thought. _He wants it_.

She was suddenly flustered, frightened at the intensity in his gaze and in her heart. Without another word she jumped to her feet, padded towards the kitchen with short, agitated steps, where she turned on the coffee machine and began to cry, silently – she'd long ago refined the art – she enjoyed the privacy of her tears. She stood there for fifteen minutes and cried, hot tears sliding down her cheeks, hardly knowing why she did so – perhaps she was angry for imposing herself on a man she could expect nothing from. Yet all the romances she had ever read had taught her that true love can be born from adversity; and how could she deny the attraction they felt for one another? How could it be all for nothing?

Glistening on the other side of the kitchen window was the sea, lapping in onto the beach under a mid-autumn sun. As she watched it she felt calmed, calm enough to finally pour out the coffee and dry her tears. When she went back into the living room, he was asleep, head placed gently upon the armrest, one hand laid out in front of his face like a slumbering child. She padded over silently, placing the cups onto the coffee table before kneeling down to look at him. There was a certain something in the asymmetry, the sculpture of his sleeping form, the arrangement he had so unassumingly placed himself in – so vulnerable, so unguarded. Who was he, what did he think, what lay behind that dreaming face? A horrible notion suddenly came to her, and she drew off one glove, fingers trembling as she reached out to touch his cheek, to finally know all there was to know about him.

But could she do it? Could she live knowing she had unfurled his story, his history, all his habits, nervous tics, pet-hates, his tortures and tragedies, his dreams, his sordid fantasies…his loves? No. She could desire no part of his past, for she knew she could own no part of his future. Anything more than this one single day would stay hidden safe inside him.

She pulled her glove back on; only then did she reach out one hand and shake him lightly on the shoulder.

"Remy," she spoke softly.

He stirred, fingers clasping the armrest as if for something unseen, and said hoarsely: "Belle?"

She withdrew her hand from him slowly, her mouth suddenly flat.  _Belle_. Oh. So there  _was_  something he loved…

"Ah made us some coffee," she continued lightly, evenly – although her throat had begun to burn again, and her heart ached. "Wake up, sugah."

He woke up, unwillingly, from that dream, that same old dream, of soft, smooth arms about him… The scene that now greeted him was jarring, unexpected, a scene from another story, one he barely recognised. Rogue was kneeling beside him, face upturned, Scarlett O'Hara mimicking her image in the background. At last reality grounded itself. He was almost surprised. So he had left New York after all. So he had left the X-Men, Belle, everything, for a life he'd surrender to no one…

"Is dat damned t'ing still on?" he grumbled, confused and disorientated, frowning at the TV screen, unaware of the thing he'd imparted to her.

"It's nearly finished," she assured him; there was a curious weight to her words he could not read. She turned her profile to him again, her features bathed in the flickering light of the TV; but her eyes were elsewhere, shutting him out, an exhibition of her own unassailable sense of privacy. Through reams of sleep he caught that flash of her again, that tilt of the chin, that arch of the brow, something half obscured… The two images moved in sudden tandem, a synchronisation, and suddenly he had it, that fleeting realisation… The woman in the dream, in whose arms he would cradle, before awakening only to forget… That woman was  _her_ …

-oOo-

Late in the evening they stood on the veranda, watching the sea and the circling gulls in silence. She hadn't said a word since she'd awoken him back in the lounge – her withdrawal completely mystified him.

"S'gettin' late," he said. It wasn't so much a statement as a warning.

"Y'want me to leave?" she questioned. She rarely looked at him when she spoke. Now she leaned on the railings, letting the wind play with her hair as she looked out to sea. He watched her in momentary silence. He found her intriguing and beautiful, but impenetrable.

"No," he finally admitted. It occurred to him that he hadn't touched her since their tussle back in the bedroom. Now he reached out under her coat and placed a tentative hand on the small of her back, waiting, gauging her reaction. She froze, sensing the inherent danger in accepting the contact, but she wanted it, and so she said nothing. His hand remained a long time, so that after a while each could feel the warmth of the other's skin across the thin barrier of silk. She shuddered at the imprint his hand left on her, a pattern yet to be matched.

"You're cold," he said.

"Yes," she lied. Such futile untruths, and they both knew it.

When he put his arms round her she thought she might shatter, be utterly annihilated by the tide of desire and triumph that so suddenly overcame her. But still she felt it her duty to practice restraint; she buried her head in his chest and made not a sound.

He held her close, feeling her heart race, the way she tried to hide it. He was perplexed by his attraction to her, to a woman he could not touch, to a woman who would remain a closed, unread book. He found her desire for this play-act of theirs touching but foolhardy – for a man who was a connoisseur of chance, her gamble was one in fool's gold. Tomorrow, when she woke up alone in bed, she would remain as cold and untouched as the morning before, as bleak and maudlin as a winter's day. He wondered what she thought during her long nights spent alone loving and hating herself, what tortured dreams consumed her every waking moment. The riddle of her character titillated him in a way that no other woman's had before – she was virgin territory, an enigma unto herself for she felt no need to divulge her secrets to him.

But for Rogue, no man she touched was a mystery, and she knew that if a man thoroughly understands a woman he cannot love her, and so she remained silent.

And there, waking, Remy relived a fleeting moment of that recurring dream, the dream where he held her in his arms an infinite amount of times over…

He stirred, unsettled by the memory, pulling away from her. His gaze was inquisitive yet tender as he brushed the hair from her face, his fingers almost teasing her cheek, so close that she felt the tips of his nails tickle her skin.

"It wasn't Magneto's idea for you to come here, was it," he murmured softly. "It was yours."

Surprised, she unclasped him, not daring to ask how he had found her so transparent. But his hand held fast onto hers, refusing to let her go.

"Tell me why you came, Rogue," he persisted, gently, gravely. She dared make no reply, turning her back on him, facing the window, seeing the somnolent dusk beginning to fall. Desperation flooded her – if only he hadn't asked, if only they could've parted without interrogation, allowing this perfect mystery to remain. How could she trust him to understand any explanation she had to offer?

Wordlessly she reached inside her old coat, pulled out a cigarette, lit it with shaking fingers. When she drew on it, it was only an exercise, an exercise in self-control, otherwise she knew she would cry, and she was afraid he would see her propensity for childishness. When she finally spoke her voice was once again calm, passionless.

"You're right," she said. "It was my idea. But the idea itself… Ah never lied t' you about that, Ah swear."

"You came t' touch me?" he remarked incredulously

She swivelled round to face him again, a mirthless smile on her face.

"To  _imprint_  you," she corrected him dryly. "Y'think touch itself gives me any kinda pleasure?" Her smile wavered; her throat contracted and she swallowed, her blasé mask temporarily displaced. "It's all so borin', y'see," she began again quietly, contemplatively. "Bein' me. Ah ain't got no special powers, not the kind the kids in the comic stores would like to have anyhow." She sucked in a mouthful of smoke, exhaled it sharply, allowing her eyes to meet his, communicating to him that her explanation was enough and that she had no desire to elucidate any further.

But it was not enough. He regarded her with an odd excitement, with a sense that some secret door he could not see was opening, revealing the thing within.

"So," he probed, "you wanted to imprint my powers? Why?"

She sighed heavily, half-turning, stopping so that the veranda framed her profile, a feverish sun illuminating her features in an image so elegant and melodramatic that he was almost stricken.

"All Ah do, Gambit, is steal other people's powers," she continued miserably, stubbing out the cigarette on a wooden beam. "Their thoughts, their mem'ries – their entire beings. Erik finds me useful, now and again, but not the way he does the others. Ah can't do anythin' but steal information for him, and every time Ah go home Ah got nothin' t' keep me comp'ny but a bunch of people runnin' round mah head, drivin' me crazy." She paused, glanced over at him with a wry smile. "Funny how lonely a gal can be, Gambit, livin' like that. S'like bein' a sad, pathetic spinster who immerses herself in soap operas every evenin', just t' give herself the illusion that she has a life."

"But how exactly would imprintin'  _me_  be any different?" he questioned.

She shrugged. "You had somethin' Ah wanted. Powers that would make me special,  _useful_ , in one way or another."

He was sceptical, knowing she'd only told him a half-truth. "An' dat was worth followin' me all de way down here?"

She was suddenly evasive. He was probing more than she had expected, yet how could she deny that all the while they had been asking constant questions of one another, words without spoken articulation, formed only in looks, caresses, expressions? She was loath to give up any admission of her weakness to him, but she knew she had been formulating that admission from the moment she had made her irrational bargain with him.

"Is it so hard t' believe," she began in a low voice, "that sometimes you just feel a connection with someone, one that you can't explain?"

"No," he replied. In light of the circumstances, he could give no other answer. At his confession she was heartened somehow, and for the first time she gazed at him with clear, sad eyes.

"When we touched on the plane, it was like…" She paused, cheeks colouring, her tone dropping a notch as she remembered that first thrill of passion. "Up until that moment, Ah never knew Ah could want somethin' so bad." She lowered her eyelids, withdrawing her gaze from his. "Ah ain't ever goin' t' be with a man, Remy," she explained, stumbling over the words and belying an inner sense of shame. "Ah ain't ever goin' t' know what it feels like t' be with someone. The closest Ah can get t' bein' intimate with someone is by touchin' them an' imprintin' them." She lifted her head, green eyes wistful. "Ah came round to figurin' that mah power could bring me closer to someone than touch itself ever could, that it could make me more intimate with a man than…"

"Than sex?" he offered when she faltered. She nodded, swallowing, her eyes flitting to his and back again nervously.

"It's crazy, Ah know," she continued, emotion cracking her voice. "But Ah thought, if Ah could just have someone inside me,  _really_  inside me, Ah could have them there and keep them forever… So that Ah wouldn't be  _lonely_ anymore…"

He sensed her humiliation, her certainty of the disgust he must feel at her confession. Any other man may indeed have found her disclosure disquieting, but he understood her, for in reality her quandary was not so different from his own. All his roaming, all his wandering, and at the end of it he found himself isolated and misunderstood. He felt petty and mean for his perceived alienation from Belladonna, Belladonna whom he could love and touch and kiss. His mind wandered involuntarily to the drawer where he had thrown his wedding ring with such casual indifference.

"If dat's de case," he asked quietly, "den why didn't you touch me when you had de chance?"

It was a question asked in fairness, but for some reason his words angered her. She rounded on him, eyes blazing green fire, hair wild.

"Don't you get it?" she snapped. "If Ah touched you, Ah was afraid that Ah might…"

She snapped her mouth shut, easy tears springing to her eyes – for she knew that what she had feared had happened already, and she had been powerless to stop it. Without another word she spun on her heel, storming off the veranda and onto the beach.

In the remaining silence Remy was left to contemplate what he had glimpsed on the other side of that open door, the door she had slammed so unceremoniously back in his face.

-oOo-

With the onset of dusk the sky had begun to bleed, deep crimsons, tawny russets and fervent purples. Rogue sensed an omen in the sky as she walked the beach – there was something in the colours that moved her and yet filled her with a sense of dread. She stopped, bare feet in the surf, toes curling in wet sand, as she looked up at the sunset, watching the orange sun score the last leg of its journey through a voluminous, violet sky. There was something too profound, too passionate about it; all the things she had spent her life running from suddenly swelled in her breast, and for the first and last time she felt alive; she felt like a woman.

Yet with the nightfall came the end of that small beginning; in the sunset, in the turn of the tides, what she saw was the day coming to an end; their pretence folding in quietly upon itself; her pitiful attempt at normality tumbling like child's bricks into one ungainly pile. All her life she had fought so brazenly against anyone and everything that had ever stood in her way; small wonder then, that the person she had most cause to fight was herself. And what she saw with the day's end was a return to her cocoon, to the place where the only demons she saw were the ones that wore her own face.

What did Rogue want?

What she wanted was intimacy, to be free of her fear of intimacy; she wanted to be loved and ravished. She longed more than anything to be torn asunder and placed back together again, gently, lovingly, reverently.

And suddenly, it became clear to her, and she understood herself for what she was – that she was a woman, that the only thing she wanted was a man brave enough to tear her apart and rebuild her again.

It was the secret in her, the secret she'd almost let him in on.

_If she touched him she was afraid that she might love him._

But what she feared had already begun.

-oOo-

Framed inside the rectangle of the window, Rogue walked across the beach like a young girl seeking seashells, the legs of her pants rolled up to her calf, feet bare in an unfamiliar display of pale, untried, untested flesh. Remy downed the rest of his third glass of bourbon, placed the glass heavily on a side-table, his teeth pulling at his lower lip. There was something mysterious and whimsical about the way she looked in the tawny sunlight, so uncomplicated, so innocent, so child-like. She stopped halfway and suddenly looked out to sea – the result was as if a painting on canvas, a snapshot in time, a moment captured, an infinite secret.

Back home, he'd always wondered what Belle thought in those moments when she would not speak to him; she liked to do that, to hold her words and thoughts to ransom, knowing that silence would thus render her even more unfathomable to him. They would never understand one another – it was as if, in her stillness, she would taunt him with the fact that they would never be able to comprehend the mystery of one another. It frustrated him, for he had known her longer than any other woman, seen aspects of her no other was privy to, and it was this, in fact, that he has always thought rendered their love unbreakable.

He leaned against the windowsill – his head felt heavy. What did he want? Was he so afraid that he was negating his own existence by sharing it with Belle's, that his personality would slowly become engulfed by hers, until there was no Remy LeBeau left? Was that why he wanted her to acknowledge him, to recognise the person he was inside? And did any of it really matter? Did any of it matter when he loved her?

Outside, Rogue half turned as if to look back towards him; but then she turned away again, unconsciously retreating, as she always did. And suddenly he knew what he wanted. He knew, and the answer so simple he wondered that he'd never seen it – for it had lain in her all along.

-oOo-

The sand was cooler now that the evening was drawing on; he too walked bare foot out onto the shore, to the place where she was standing. The Alice in Wonderland quality she had held, when he had seen her back inside the frame of the window, evaporated; under close quarters she was no longer a girl – she was a woman, a woman with whose life he would only barely intersect.

"Y' like de sea?" he asked her, making a tentative step towards a reconciliation.

She shrugged.

"It's okay."

He lit them each a cigarette. She was cool, detached, her eyes dull as she looked upon inky waves flecked with ashen foam. He passed an inquiring look towards her profile, but she said nothing, imparted nothing, relinquished nothing. He thought she was angry with herself for making a bargain that left her with so little, that perhaps she blamed him for taking advantage of her. Maybe she would touch him after all. Maybe she would steal away his thoughts, his memories, his soul, his self. Maybe she would learn to understand him.

But there was no agitation in her features. She was calm, meditative. He followed her gaze, out to sea. Whatever it was she saw, he could not see; but he could feel it. He had often felt it when he stood here – an emotion he could give no name to, a thing he could not interpret into any language he knew. He shuddered, feeling suddenly, inexplicably moved, overcome with a deep and penetrating sense of dread.

"You ever been in love, Remy LeBeau?"

Her question was slight, though unexpected; she said it without contrivance, though her words unsettled him. He hid his discomfit behind a small laugh. " _Chere_ , I'm de kind of man who's always fallin' in love." His lips contorted self-deprecatingly. "My Tante Mattie used t' say, 'ain't nothin' wrong wit' fallin' in love; it's what y' do wit' dat love dat makes de difference." He halted, feeling embarrassed that he should have allowed himself to be so sentimental in her presence. He looked over to her, quickly changing the subject. "And you?"

She shrugged again with feigned indifference. "Ah don't think Ah really know what love is," she replied.

He said nothing. His mind was once more on the ring he'd hidden in his bedside drawer; he wondered what Belle was doing right now. Beside him, Rogue shifted, the bare toes of one foot marking a nervous pattern in wet sand.

"So what's it like then?" she asked, "T' be in love?"

It was his turn to shrug. "Can't say. S'one of those things you only know when you feel it."

Her silence was short, analytical; he sensed the question that would follow, but it was not the one she asked.

"An' what's it like, to show someone you love them? What's it like when you kiss them and touch them and hold them close?"

His throat tightened. He felt pity for her – pity and something more.

"It feels…good,  _chere_. Real good." Anything else, he couldn't find the vocabulary to explain. He sensed her frustration, the kind of frustration he felt when he wanted to reach out to Belle, knowing he couldn't, knowing it was impossible because their conceptions of the world were so different… She frowned, tossing her head back towards the sea.

"If Ah was to touch someone Ah loved," she began slowly, ruminatively, "someone Ah  _really_  loved, Ah think Ah'd be terrified half t' death." She took one last drag on the cigarette, tossed it into the surf. "Ah just wouldn't know what t' do, y'know? Wouldn't know where t' put mah hands, or mah arms, or mah lips, or…" She faltered, not so much from embarrassment, but from a sudden thought that had led to some inner thread of contemplation. She was silent for a long moment, her face as still as if she were in a coma. What she meant to say was, she had no memory of skin, no recollection with which to judge the interaction of flesh. But she too lacked the words to describe her train of thought. It was a full minute before she seemed to awaken.

"Y' know what Ah like about the sea?" she spoke up, less to evade the disconcerting topic than to reply to his previous question. She cast him a playful glance, a cryptic smile, before turning away again. "It's the fact that it's always changin'. Each moment is different from the last – nothin' stays the same." She paused, and when she spoke again her tone was low, enigmatic. "Whenever Ah stand here, on the beach, whenever Ah look out t' sea, and see the tide comin' in, it feels like all the past, all the future's rushin' right in at me. It's like…Ah'm right in the centre of everythin'." She turned back to him, forced a small, wavering laugh out of her mouth. "Ain't that crazy?"

He remained perfectly still, only his eyes moving over her face with a probing intensity as her gaze found his in the lengthening shadows, in the encroaching night. "No, Rogue," he said at last, "it ain't crazy." His eyes shifted, to some point in space over her shoulder. "Sometimes, I dream –"

He did not finish. She looked back over her shoulder to see what he saw, the breeze catching her hair, cinnamon curls caressing pink cheeks. It was the sun, dropping beneath stars, extinguishing itself in the sea, taking with it the last vestiges of the day.

Last call.

"Rogue," he began on impulse, "if you want t' touch me…"

"Ah don't want t' touch you anymore," she interjected quickly, too quickly, too tensely. She found his eyes again, searching desperately, waiting for their cue. And suddenly it was there between them, so abruptly, so imperceptibly that they were both confused. There was no time left to heed it. Without thought she reached out with sudden hunger, taking his face between gloved hands, pressing her lips, her body, greedily against his. And for one moment it was everything she had ever imagined it would have been – later, she could not bear to think that maybe it was her imagination that he kissed her back; that for the first time she shared a kiss of passion, that for the first time she was a woman and a man kissed her back.

But as for him, the only thing he would ever remember afterward with stark clarity would be the taste, the texture of her, unlocking the stranger in him, guiding him upward and outward to the nameless space where, suspended for one moment in time, Remy LeBeau would cease to exist, except inside her.

No hurting, no running, no borders, no bounds, no masks, no secrets, no lies.

He imagined or felt that he pressed her closer, before he slipped away, and a part of him became a part of her forever.

-oOo-

When he awoke, it was to the calls of seagulls and the rhythmic cadence of the tide playing upon the shoreline. At first he thought she had left him where he had fallen, but as his vision cleared he recognised his makeshift bedroom, the ivory-coloured walls coruscating in the pallid, morning sunlight. He sat up slowly, nursing his aching head – the rest of his body felt unaccountably light, like a featherweight. As he sat upright, her threadbare carpet coat slipped off his shoulders and into his lap. He stared down at it, took the textured material between his hands, for the first time noticing the tapestry of roses someone had once stitched into the antique piece of clothing, long ago. His heart felt emptied, consumed. He pressed the fabric against his face, as if to awaken a memory of her that he could recreate into solid, tangible reality, his very own Galatea. The old material smelled of her scent, of her hair.

"Rogue?" he called out, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat, called again. "Rogue?"

No answer.

He wandered downstairs as a man who sleepwalks, finding each room he went into new, remote and alien, places ripped out of his normal schema and replaced as subtle distortions. All bare.

She was gone.

He trudged back upstairs, feeling disorientated and disconnected from the reality he now found himself in, a reality without her or any token of her but the coat she had left him. He sat down on the bed heavily, staring across to the place where she had stood, unconsciously replaying imperfect recollections of every word they had said. When he rubbed his face, his fingers grated against a thick crop of stubble. It slowly dawned on him that he was entirely without reference. What day was it, what was the time? He glanced at the clock on the bedside table, saw that it was 08:36 of the following morning.

And that was when he noticed the note, flapping gently in the breeze from an open window.

He stood up and went to it, surprised to find that it was his wedding ring serving as a paperweight. Underneath the gold band, written entirely in inelegant capitals, she had left him her last cryptic message:

_YOU DON'T NEED TO UNDERSTAND. UNDERSTANDING ISN'T LOVING._

He picked up the ring, weighing it thoughtfully in his hand before dropping it in his pocket, not yet feeling ready to put it back on. Then he picked up the note, folded it once over, and slipped it inside the pocket of her coat.

Later, he went out onto the beach, walking golden dunes bathed under the light of a new day. The spot where they had kissed was now buried beneath shifting sands and foam-flecked waves, waves that found their journey's end a place far from home. Perhaps they had intended to meet the shores of another land, across some vast distance he could not tell, nor would ever see.

Perhaps they would have led him to another conclusion, and washed him up some place else, on the shores of a life where Rogue was a stranger no longer.

-oOo-

* * *

_Next: "Degrees of Separation" - Rogue and Gambit have a decision to make at the epicentre of all the Threads…_


	6. Degrees of Separation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gambit has an important decision to make that could effect the rest of the Threads, but is it a choice Rogue is willing to let him make?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This story is based (rather self-indulgently, I admit) on my own AU (Insurrection; the stories can be read on my homepage, even though they're rather incomplete at the mo.) It's kind of the centrepoint of all the other Threads stories, which will be tied together (hopefully) in the tenth and final tale. And for all those who've read some of my Insurrection fics, this takes place about 10 years after "24 Hours", and is a kind of epilogue to that series - the epic end purpose I'd always intended for our Southern couple. All you need to know is a) Rogue learned to control her powers and b) Rogue permanently imprinted Destiny. Yay!
> 
> 'Honest Goodbyes' song lyrics credited to Bic Runga.
> 
> Dedication: To all those who have read, reviewed, supported and enjoyed my fics - yes, this is going out to all of yous. To my muses, Patchy, Letanica, Randi. To Katjen, for the inspiration. To Angy, for reminding me why I'm writing this in the first place, and for a well-placed kick up the arse.

_'…And in Time,_

_The key in lock is turned;_

_The Witness shall beget,_

_An error to end all errors.'_

-oOo-

It was a lonely room, a room of oddities: a scattering of blood red roses; a pack of tarot cards left half-spread; mirrors in wry, contorted frames; the crumbling husks of butterflies in dusty glass cases; a silver wind-chime that would be touched by no breeze.

These were the symbols of her world, her museum, the confined chaos she kept herself in – all else had been jettisoned, cast away, left behind.

Along with  _him_.

In the centre of it all, Rogue slept entwined in snow-white sheets, dreaming. Sleeping or waking – over time both had come to make little difference. Everything seemed different and yet the same; most days she barely knew who she was. Was she dead, or living? Was she a mother, or lover? Friend, or foe? Her dreams were not simply dreams – they were real, bleeding involuntarily into all her waking hours, driving her almost to the precipice of madness. The dreams, the room, refracted images of what might or might not ever have been – these were all she owned.

In the half-darkness, Rogue stirred, once, twice, then jerked herself into wakefulness. Green eyes flashed in the darkness, roaming, searching the dim recesses of the room with momentary confusion.

The sea. She'd been dreaming of the sea. And  _him_.

"You like to watch him, don't you?"

The voice was soft, haunting, yearning as a siren's song. Rogue was not startled by it. She swivelled slightly, eyes straining. In the corner of the room a woman was sitting, elegant and feline, cerulean blue eyes glimmering like finely cut sapphires in the dusky light.

"Yes," Rogue replied without even the flicker of an eyelid. "Ah like to watch him."

The woman rose, cat-like, patterns of iridescent light sliding up across shapely curves caught under the folds of translucent mauve, caressing the contours of a face whose beauty none could match. Porcelain skin, regal, elfin features, locks dark as the raven's wing. Her face was flawless, exquisite; yet the eyes were old, almost too old.

"You only do harm to yourself in this, friend Rogue," the woman warned in that same rich, musical tone – the secrets of ages were hidden in that voice. "It is not right that you see what you see, that you torture yourself with such knowledge. Let it be."

Rogue sat up, the pale sheets slipping from bare white shoulders as she looked away, eyelids lowered. A curl of hair fell across her cheek, tickled her breast.

"Ah can't," she replied softly. "Not until he comes back." She stood, gathering the sheets about her as she walked to the window and gazed down onto the crystal waters of the Timestream, pressing a hand against cool glass. Below her the Timestream shifted, balked; then, as if entirely indifferent to her plight, continued on its way. "Ah miss him so, Roma," she murmured. "Out there… in all those other worlds…he seems so much the same… it's as if there's no difference at all…" Her eyelids fluttered shut. "Please don't ask me to stop," she begged.

Roma, Supreme Guardian of the Omniverse, Keeper of Time and Goddess of the Northern Skies, said nothing for a moment. Very many years ago, when Rogue had still been young, she had permanently imprinted the powers of her foster-mother, Destiny, thus inheriting powers of foresight even Roma herself did not fully possess. It was an ability that allowed Rogue to tap into every facet of Time itself, one that manifested itself in clairvoyant dreams. Thus she was of vital importance to Roma's operations, since Roma – as Guardian of the Omniverse – was the one deity who held all the threads of Fate in her hands. She was the eternal puppet-master, the all-encompassing Wheel of Fortune. The destinies of a thousand worlds were subject to all her whims.

And yet Rogue preferred to spend all her hours spying on the many shadows of the man she loved, the man who had so cruelly left her. Many times Roma had warned Rogue against using her powers to fuel such a dangerous obsession, but to no avail. Roma was, after all, an immortal, and immortals little understand the human need for attachment, for bonding or intimacy. Commitment, companionship and love were all immaterial to her.

"Rogue," she began softly, knowing all advice was a hopeless endeavour. "While you may believe otherwise, I did not come here to lecture you on your choice of pastime. I have news to bring, and of the utmost importance." She paused, blue eyes unblinking, watchful. "I've found it, Rogue. The timeline without errors."

Rogue shifted her head in a slight, almost casual movement. A lock of hair slipped across her profile, hiding an expression that was suddenly alert.

"The one Destiny mentioned in her Diaries?" she questioned, her voice flat, betraying nothing.

"So far, it has preserved itself." She walked to stand beside Rogue, whose face was now expressionless. "You know what the Diaries say.  _You_  carry them inside you, after all." She placed a soothing hand on the Southerner's shoulder. "There is to be a meeting in my Nexus concerning the Diaries. It would please me greatly if you would attend." She paused, passed her a wan smile. "It is time, Rogue."

The pressure in her fingers increased, just once, before she left, leaving Rogue under the flickering light of the Timestream to ponder the secret that had just been divulged to her. If it was time, it could only mean one thing.

 _He_ had returned.

-oOo-

Rogue hurried down the corridor towards Roma's Nexus, her footsteps slapping on cold rose marble, clap, clap, clap, clap, racing against the beat of her heart, against every wild hope and dream she'd ever entertained. A part of her wanted to be wrong, for him not to be there, so that every prescient vision she'd ever had of this moment would be proved false and the dreadful end diverted.

But as she swung open the doors that led into the great hall, she was assailed by a flurry of fragrance; that old, familiar scent, of tobacco and spices, of coffee and leather, of all the shared memories she'd held onto so tenuously, so helplessly for so long. She gripped the doorframe, her mind reeling, her heart catching in her throat. Trapped.

Fate had trapped her in this moment and she was doomed to play it out…

 

He was facing the window, his eyes on the Timestream, colour and shadow playing across a face as sharp and chiselled as a Greek statue's. He didn't turn; but they'd long past the time where they needed looks in order to seduce one another. Rogue swallowed a shallow breath. He hadn't changed. All that time and he was still as intoxicating to her as he always had been.

"Nice t' see you too, Rogue," he spoke to the window.

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

Behind the suave exterior of Remy LeBeau lay a man of shrewd intelligence and a keen wit. The walk, the talk, the faces he wore – they were all a fabrication, a role he played to perfection. He was a manipulator of masks so skilful that none might even know they were there at all. He was as capable of being cold, ruthless and analytical as he was of being glib, charming and passionate, as capable of being a killer as a lover. He was the most dangerous man she'd ever known, sly as a predator, protean as the chameleon.

He had been known by many names in his time, but in all Destiny's prophetic visions, he had had only one name – the Witness.

He was a traveller, one whose latent ability was to tap into the kinetic flow of the universe, one whose Omega class potential was to transcend the boundaries of time itself.(1) It was the reason why he had left her, and why she had let him go. He had gone to search his destiny, little knowing that the person who held the key to it was the woman he'd been running from, the only woman he'd ever allowed to see the ugliness behind the mask, to hear the secrets divulged over careless pillow talk, or coffee in the mornings. Oh yes. She knew enough to torture him in ways he could only dream of.

Now he took her silence as reproach. His mouth frowned, then flickered into a smile, as he lit a cigarette with casual indifference. Inhale. Exhale. Smoke poured from his mouth, weaving, curling, fading, insubstantial as all the sweet words he'd ever spoken to her.

"Been wonderin' where you were," he said. His voice was rich as aged cognac, drawing her in, drowning her… "Was beginnin' t' think maybe you din' want t' be found no more."

"Maybe you'd be right," she answered, her tone less cold than it was uncertain. She had been so sure of this moment, of the contempt she would show him; but seeing him there again, so beautiful, so dangerous, so  _tangible_  after all that time… He amplified the emptiness inside her; he made her want.

"You should know by now, Rogue," he began softly, "dat Fate always has a funny way of bringin' us back t'gether again."

Fate – it was the one thing that truly belonged to her, and that she spent every moment running from.

"Ah wouldn't know," she replied at last.

Exhale. The corner of his mouth twisted into a bitter grimace. His eyes narrowed, glittered.

"Funny. I woulda thought all dat time apart, de only t'ing you'd be dreamin' about would be me."

Her cheeks almost flushed at the truth of his statement.

"Ah try not t' dream about our future," she replied quietly. "Ah didn't think we had one no more. Not together. Not anymore."

He turned, slowly, his dark eyes running over her face with that greedy intensity, breaking through the veil of time that had lain so impenetrable between them, making a sudden breath tremble in her throat. It was a long time since they'd last laid eyes on one another. Back then she'd been all soft and yielding, lying naked in his bed, one smooth, white arm extended towards him. There was no such tenderness in her now, except for a memory, a trace of what once might have been – a stirring of her body, curling upward like a warm tongue of flame from the emptiness deep inside the pit of her stomach.

And suddenly she was alive again; she was burning.

Their gazes met with mutual longing, and Rogue grimaced inwardly at the self-betrayal. She was angry with herself, as well as him. Angry for hating him and then touching herself in the darkness when it was his hands she couldn't stop longing for. She knew that if he touched her, she'd be his all over again, without question, without another second wasted.

And he knew it.

 _Ah hate yah, Remy LeBeau_ , she wanted to say. She said nothing.

 

It had been four years. Before he had left her, he had whispered "one year". It hadn't been enough. Not enough for him to purge himself of her. Not enough to remember why it felt so good to hold her close. Not enough for him to lie there in the middle of the night and conjure up that weightless, formless, wistful thing – her name. The longer he spent away from her the more he learned to want her. He liked to torture himself with thoughts of her – he could be rather masochistic in that way. When he spent his nights sleepless and in unfamiliar arms, he would lie there empty and hollow inside, the way he thought he ought to be. She made him feel; she made him a stranger unto himself. She unmasked every act he had ever performed, every lie he had ever told.

Yet he couldn't stop wanting her.

The countless women whose arms he'd run into, and yet every step he took in the opposite direction seemed to lead back to her.

When he'd left her it had been under the cover of night. She'd reached out for him, catching his hand in her own, twisting the gold band on his finger, reminding him who he was, that he'd find nothing in all those other women just as he'd found nothing in her. He'd frowned in the darkness – he already knew it was hopeless; he knew he had to go, he knew he had to leave her.

Her fingers, slipping from his own, disappearing into the night, the last impression he'd ever had of her.

 

His eyes narrowed, flickered; he pulled on his cigarette, studied her with a look that would've neutralised any woman in sight. Exhale. He ran his tongue over dry lips.

"You haven't changed," he noted.

"Neither have you," she murmured in return.

"Still stubborn as a mule."

"Still all talk."

"Still goddamn beautiful."

She paused, annoyed that she'd allowed him to take her off guard.

"That ain't no compliment," she finally muttered. "A pretty face was always all it ever took with you. An' when it came down to it, Ah was never more than just a pretty face, was Ah."

He blinked, grinned. "Still Rogue," he concluded. He dropped the cigarette and stumped it out with the heel of his boot before finally closing the space that lay between them. She remained stock still as he stepped in close to her, as cold and unresponsive as she could muster as the heat and scent of him flooded her senses; her body tingled with things remembered and she fought the urge to press against him, to feel what he could do to and for her once more.

"D'you remember dat night at de Soniat?" he murmured seductively, his fingers idly tickling a stray lock of her hair. "Champagne… Red silk an' chocolate… Miles an' miles of soft, smooth skin, an' hair the flavour of violets. Been dreamin' about it,  _chere_. Been dreamin' about every inch of you."

He leaned forward slightly, his lips just a breath away from her ear. She froze, both longing for him and rejecting him with every fibre of her being.

"Ah was only ever forbidden sex t' yah, Cajun," she murmured back.

His smile was slow, sensuous. "At first, yes. But den I just couldn't stop wantin' more. Y' got me hooked,  _chere_."

He leaned in a little closer and she let him. She let him because she knew how to play his game now – she was going to draw him in the way he had her, and then she was going to leave him hanging.

"Not enough for me t' keep y' hangin' round," she replied softly, twisting her head a little so that the words fell against his neck. A vein pulsed there. He shifted, his face lowering, those dark, dark eyes catching hers, liquid temptation…

"I'm here now," he whispered. "T'ink it's too late t' make up for de past four years,  _chere_?"

He would've kissed her and she would've welcomed him, but just as his lips were about to touch hers she pressed a hand against his chest, held him back lightly, saying, warning: "Roma knows about the Witness." Carefully calculated words, a sentence she had rehearsed over and over in advance. They worked. He paused, an almost imperceptible trace of doubt twitching through him.

"What's dat s'pposed t' mean t' me," he asked, feigning indifference.

"Why d'you think she asked you here? You're the Witness, Remy. The one that ties all these threads t'gether. She knows, Remy. She knows…"

He jerked his head back, uncertainty in his expression as he regarded her.  _You're bluffing,_  he said with his eyes. She shook her head, smiled, and closed the gap between them again, nestling her head into his shoulder. She could feel the doubt, the suspicion emanating from him in waves. An odd sense of triumph coursed through her, triumph mixed with bitterness. She hadn't wanted to do this. But it was the only way to make him suffer the way she had. She tilted her head slightly, gazed up at him through smoky green eyes, said in that honey accent: "Y'still wanna make up for the past four years, Cajun?"

His eyes narrowed as he wavered between distrust and desire. He knew she was playing him and she knew she'd taken him off guard. It gave her a strange kind of satisfaction to know she'd pre-empted him, that her seduction had been replaced with his own.

"Ahem."

Roma was suddenly standing behind them, her blue eyes calm, apologetic. Neither were certain when she had entered, nor how much she had heard. Rogue pushed herself away from him, a trace of a smile on her lips as she stepped back, feeling the tension radiating from him, knowing he was impatient to hold her close, to retrace the marks he'd so lovingly placed upon her body all those years ago. Now she had him right where she wanted him. Her revenge was almost complete.

"Forgive me," Roma spoke apologetically, "I had not wanted to intrude on your reunion." She turned to Remy, her smile matronly. "It has been too long, my friend," she welcomed him warmly.

"Not long at all, by your standards," he remarked wryly, his guileful charm returned.

"True," she replied with the cryptic smile only an immortal could possess, "but one does like to play the games you mortals so often indulge in, at least once in a while."

"Y'wanted t' speak t' us about somet'ing important," Remy began casually, too casually.

"I would not have summoned you, if it was not important," Roma replied dryly. "As it is, I would have had others attend, if not for the urgency of the matter. But it is of no moment – you are the only person whose presence is required under the circumstances." She paused, glanced at Rogue. "And Rogue, who has a peculiar insight into these affairs."

"Destiny's prophecies," Remy said softly, knowingly.

"Yes," Roma replied. "The moment Rogue imprinted her foster-mother she alone inherited visions of a future not even I can glimpse. As Omniversal Guardian, it is my duty to bring together the threads that lead to the most beneficial outcome, and thus to weave them into the tapestry I have created. That of Fate, and of the ultimate purpose."

"Ultimate purpose, huh?" he retorted sardonically. "And who exactly would dis future be most beneficial to, Y'Majesty? Baseline humans? Mutants? Yourself?"

Roma regarded him placidly, eyes unblinking, owl-like.

"The end purpose I strive for is only that which is most advantageous to the Omniverse as a whole."

"Right," Remy nodded sarcastically, popping a cigarette into his mouth and flicking at an antique gold lighter. " _Dat's_ one I've heard a million times b'fore from de likes of you. Sorry, but helpin' out immortal puppet-masters t' pull people's strings ain't really my scene."

"Maybe Fate leaves you little choice in the matter," Roma suggested archly.

"Heh. Dat's a crock." The cigarette finally lit. "Fate ain't a one-way track, Roma, we all know dat. I make my decision, Fate rewrites itself around it."

"Unless, of course, your decision creates a fatal paradox."

Remy's eyes flashed dangerously. "Look,  _Y'Majesty_ , I don't know what I've got t' do wit' any of dis, but you can't force me t' do nothin' I don't want t' do. Besides, I can see why you'd be needin' Rogue's help in all dis, but mine –"

"You, by reason of your powers, are able to breach the Timestream," she interrupted him calmly. "And thus you are able to navigate all timelines of the Omniverse without obstacle or censure." She halted, cast a glance toward the crystal chandelier in the centre of the hall, within which the life force of each world was contained. "Each timeline, Remy, is a thread in the tapestry called Fate. What if I told you that you were able to hold all those threads in your hands?"

He said nothing, his mouth suddenly hard. Ash dropped from the cigarette between his fingers, fell unheeded to the floor.

"The Diaries, as you all know, predict the existence of a timeline that is essential and intrinsic to the survival of all the others," Roma continued softly, turning back towards them. "It is one that is purported to contain the end purpose to the entire Omniverse as a whole. Such a matter, my friends, is not to be taken lightly. As Guardian of the Omniverse, it is my duty to protect the interests of the Omniverse – and thus, it is my duty to preserve and protect this one timeline that has been singled out so specifically by Destiny herself."

"And exactly which timeline would dat be?" Remy spoke up, his eyes still carefully avoiding contact with Rogue's.

"Ah." Roma stood, walked the few paces to her crystal chandelier, and pointed out one of the translucent jewels amongst the great cluster of many. "It is, I believe, this one."

"All look de same t' me," Gambit muttered sarcastically, one corner of his mouth cocked upward. Roma turned to him with a pale smile.

"It is the timeline you call 616," she informed him dryly.

"616?" His eyebrows twitched but he did not seem surprised. "Out of all dese threads o' yours, de all-important strand is one so backward an' insignificant?"

Roma raised an elegantly shaped ebony eyebrow.

"Does it surprise you so?"

Remy sniffed, half smiled. "I meant no disrespect, Y' Majesty. S'jus' dat 616 bein' de golden thread s'like a donkey all dressed up like a horse. Here we've all reached de full extent of our powers, but our counterparts in 616… they've barely reached even a fraction of their potential."

"And does that make them unworthy of our attention?" she asked him directly. He pouted, shrugged. Roma gave a small smile, continued: "Consider this, my friend. A few years ago this timeline was almost destroyed by the actions of one David Haller, the son of that world's Charles Xavier. Xavier's death caused a massive rupture in the fabric of Time and Space, shunting the 616 timeline off course and creating a new timeline, a so-called Age of Apocalypse. By rights, 616 should have ended there and then. Yet the Bishop of that universe was able to save it, and – through the aid of the M'Krann crystal –  _restore_  it to its former existence." She paused, letting the words linger in the air between them a moment. "This is but one example of the instinct for self-preservation this timeline and its inhabitants display," she concluded. "I have come to believe very strongly that this is the timeline Irene Adler spoke of."

There was a deep quiet. Remy dropped the cigarette, stamped it out.

"So what d'you want me t' do 'bout it?" he asked bluntly. "Recon? Y' want me t' spy on dis 616, bring back information?"

Roma glanced momentarily at Rogue, who so far had remained silent. There was a watchful look on her face, a tremulous expectancy. Roma frowned, looked back to Remy.

"There is one passage that refers to the 616 timeline – one that has interested and perplexed me greatly." She turned aside and began to recite the words gently, almost reverently:

_'…And in Time,_

_The key in lock is turned;_

_The Witness shall beget,_

_An error to end all errors.'_

She swivelled, casting him an imperious glance from clear blue eyes. "There is one word that intrigues me here – ' _witness_ '."

Rogue stirred, almost involuntarily. For the first time since Roma had entered, Remy cast her a quick glance as though waiting for her to say something – but she remained silent.

"Witness," he finally echoed, his tone mirthless. "Y'mean me." It was a statement, not a question. Roma nodded.

"Let us be frank," she began gravely. "I have already told you, Remy LeBeau, that should you so wish, you alone have the power to infiltrate all the timelines that comprise the Omniverse. As you rightly surmise, 616  _is_  the golden thread. But there are also a countless number of  _different_  threads, alternate timelines that are connected to 616 and that are critical to its survival. And I need somebody to be in all these worlds  _at the same time_."

For a moment Remy looked rattled; then he laughed.

"Sorry, y'Majesty, but I t'ink you have de wrong Witness." He sobered quickly, his voice dropping a notch. "Sure, I can manipulate time enough to slip me through into one timeline at a time, but more den one at once –"

"Remy," Roma cut in gently, "there is no need for this. I know the truth."

All at once the mask slipped from his face; he exhaled a sharp breath through his teeth, sending a searing glance in Rogue's direction. She said nothing, did not even meet his gaze, but her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright.

"What truth?" he finally asked quietly, his face haggard as his eyes shifted back to Roma.

"That you alone have the power to break the bonds of the Timestream, to be  _everywhere_  all at once." She paused, seeing the tautness of his jaw, the fire in his eyes.  _He knew the truth all along_ , she thought,  _and yet he kept it from me…_  "In the Diaries, Destiny spoke of an error  _in_  Time," she continued softly, "one to end all errors – that is, one to end all the errors within  _other_ timelines. Already you possess the ability to breach the Timestream by tapping into the kinetic flow of time and space, allowing access into any universe you so choose. But you've always had the potential to further break that limit, a limit even Destiny herself couldn't break – not physically anyhow. It's the ability to remake Time, to remake yourself  _inside_  it…by controlling the kinetic energy from the centrepoint of both Time and Space." She paused, lowered her voice. "There have been many versions of you that have sought to break that boundary – some have succeeded, but not without terrible cost. Only  _you_  are destined to succeed where others have not, to extricate yourself from Fate itself." She half smiled at him. "The Witness – an error  _inside_  Time – an error because he can exist at all points  _within_  Time itself. A temporal anomaly. A true time traveller."

At the words Remy clenched his mouth shut and looked over at Rogue, his glance piercing, haunted. Still she refused to meet his gaze. Her expression was placid, almost vacant, but her breast was heaving, the pulse of her heart thudding against the wall of her chest.

"Gambit," Roma began gently, sensing both his hurt and confusion. "If you knew the truth for all this time, why did you keep a thing of such importance from me?"

"Why?" There was a faintly sardonic smile of self-mockery on his lips. "Y' ever t'ink, Roma, dat dis Cajun don't want t' be a part of de Diaries' crazy games no more?" He looked over at her, the flames in his crimson eyes burning. "What you an' Destiny are proposin' is dat I  _become_  Time. Well, jus' maybe a mere mortal like me wants t' keep his sorry excuse for a life, b'cause he likes it just de way it is."

Roma pursed her lips. His reply surprised her little. Often she had found it extraordinary that humans should want to keep holding onto a life comprised of so many tawdry, fleeting pleasures, and such fragile, trivial memories. But that was the way of mortals, and Roma could not begrudge them that.

"You are right," she finally admitted in a low voice. "I cannot force you to make a choice you do not wish to commit to. Fate is malleable, and with or without you, the threads continue, whether they are bound together or not. But I ask this of you because…I truly believe that it is for the best." She reached out a hand, touched his shoulder comfortingly. "It is your choice to make, my friend." she spoke softly. "I ask nothing of you that you do not wish to do."

She stepped past him and moved towards the door, then stopped and half-turned.

"There are other things I must attend to now, but in the meantime, I ask only that you think on this matter. When you have made your decision," and she paused, looking briefly towards Rogue, "please let me know."

She slipped out, silent as quicksilver. Rogue brushed past him to follow her, but before she could leave he gripped onto her wrist, jerking her back violently to face him.

"You _told_ her…!" he seethed under his breath, his eyes glinting.

"Ah couldn't conceal it from her much longer," she replied coolly.

" _Bullshit!_ " he raged at her, finally losing his temper. "If I know anyt'ing about you, Rogue, you did it t' hurt  _me_!"

She stood straighter, met his gaze with calm determination. "Maybe Ah did it b'cause this time Ah want you outta mah life for good."

That got his attention. His hands snapped round her upper arms like talons and he shook her violently, his face livid with rage, crimson flames leaping from his eyes.

"I don't believe you!" he spat. "Dis is one o' your crazy schemes at revenge, your fucked up way o' payin' me back!"

"Yah think?" she hissed back, her own temper flaring. "Now why on earth would Ah be wantin' payback, Remy LeBeau?"

He blinked, his grip loosening. "Goddammit, Rogue, d'you hate me so much?" he questioned her, despair edging into his voice.

"Ah don't know," she replied honestly. His fingers were sharp through her sleeves, digging into her flesh, the warmth of each digit seeping into her body. It was almost more than she could bear. "Have you ever loved me enough t' stay?"

"Y' _know_  I love you," he growled.

At the words tears glazed her eyes and she blinked them away fiercely, desperate to hold them back. "It ain't enough anymore!" she rejoined in sudden anguish. "Those four years you were away, Ah finally figured it out, Remy. Y'all want t' be free, t' go where you wanna go, t' do what you wanna do with whoever you wanna do it with. Ah was never anythin' t' you except a quick fix!"

"Dat ain't true!" he roared.

"Ain't it? Why, Remy? Give me a reason why you want meh back, tell me it ain't because Ah'm just another whore to yah! C'mon Remy! Fight for me with every last inch of the body an' heart an' soul that you have, tell me why Ah should believe that this is for real!"

For a wild moment she thought he would strike her, and half of her wanted it, half of her wanted to feel the physicality of the rage and the passion they felt for one another. But then the fury fell from his face; his fingers slackened and he let go of her. She stumbled away from him, trembling, clutching her arms about her, feeling the imprint of his hands soak into her skin. She knew he wouldn't fight for her. It was too much for him. It always had been. Almost instinctively he reached for her again, wanting to hold her in his arms, to comfort her. But she flinched away and he stopped, his arms hanging loose by his sides.

The silence hung over them, thick, impenetrable. She turned away from him, eyes swimming.

"I  _did_  look for you," his voice broke into the quiet. "But you weren't where you was s'pposed t' be. Jus' an empty, dusty house, all cold and hollow-like… seemed you hadn't been there in years. Thought it was our latest run o' hide an' seek." He gave a short, mirthless laugh, ran a hand through his hair. "I don' blame you. You're right – I used you. I never meant to, but you were just always _there_  and I…" He sucked in a breath, exhaled. "What you told Roma… It was  _our_  secret, Rogue."

She closed her eyes, shook her head. "There can't be any secrets anymore."

He caught the gravity of her tone, the meaning behind her veiled words. His dark eyes narrowed. "What have you seen?" he asked in a low voice.

She was tired. So tired. She wanted to sleep, to dream, to pretend that she was the only woman he'd ever want, that he wouldn't be afraid to want her and just her.

"Nothin'," she said at last, her voice small. "Just the same as Ah always saw for us…nothin'."

She moved to leave the room, but as she brushed past him he caught her left hand and pulled her back, mimicking the way she'd reached for him when he'd left her that night four years ago. He found it – the old, scuffed gold band on her ring finger, battered and worn from all the nights she'd spent slipping it on and off, wondering if she should just throw it away forever.

"Don't go," he begged softly.

Too late.

She snatched her hand back roughly.

Turning, she left him the way he'd left her four years before.

-oOo-

* * *

He'd proposed to her on a rainy day ten years earlier, back in her hometown of Caldecott County, having chased her halfway across the world and back, only to find her closer to home than he'd ever imagined.

For two weeks he'd encroached upon her hospitality, giving no reason for his continued presence in her makeshift home other than bursts of tongue-tied bemusement which led her to suspect that this time, maybe – just maybe – he really would be staying for good.

One morning she'd taken him out for a walk by the Mississippi, winding their way up its muddy banks to watch the trawlers steaming by lazily under a fevered red sun. Over the horizon, beyond the wooded hills that were gathered on the furthest banks of the river, thunder had begun to roll down over the plains, as if the sun had somehow buckled under the weight of its own heat. In a matter of seconds the storm had swept down the bluffs towards them – they were soaked before they'd even decided they were going to make for the woods. He'd taken her hand and raced her towards shelter, cursing under his breath as the rain sheeted down on them in thick slats, drenching their clothes, running off their hair and down their backs, making them shiver as the damp found their pores and seeped into their bones.

They'd stood under the canopy of some great and ancient oak tree. Ever since he'd arrived back in her life they'd barely touched one another, too frightened to know where their feelings would take them. She'd stood with her back to him, fingers on rough bark, shivering. Like a candle, flickering. He'd reached out a hand, touched her waist, feeling warm skin through the dampness of her blouse; she'd started, melted. Touch was their only source of shelter. He'd pulled her into his embrace, and she hadn't resisted. Hearts beating, louder than words. She'd stared up at him, trying to say something, trying to break the awkwardness of the moment – what she did say, in the end, he'd never remember. He'd only remember the way she looked when she spoke – pallid cheeks, the blush of wet lips, damp and bedraggled cinnamon curls; droplets clinging to the lashes of sea green eyes. Mermaid skin. The taste of her mouth, velvet roses…

He'd remember never wanting anything so badly.

He'd remember wanting to be the one to pin this butterfly down.

And suddenly the words had come tumbling out of his mouth, one by one, in every which way he'd posed them in all his wildest dreams, in all his most terrifying nightmares.

Temporary, blinding insanity. They both knew it.

She'd shuddered from something more than just cold, and said 'yes'.

 

They'd signed the contract a few weeks later in a small, spontaneous ceremony with neither friends nor witnesses; the deal made, the bond sealed, no blueprint drawn, no turning back. No madness, no compulsion of his had ever lasted this long; yet they'd both known instinctively that, as with all his whims, it would not last.

He'd moved into her makeshift house; and then, inevitably, her house had become a little less makeshift. Clutter accumulated, tactile, nostalgic things – photographs, records, books, letters, nick-nacks, bills – the relics of married life settled like so much dust. Two years passed and they became mired in each other, in their own closeness, in all the idle minutes spent together. Almost unconsciously he began to drift away again, for days on end, just like he always had done back in the day. She'd stayed at home, pottering round a forlorn and empty house as if the sound of her footsteps could make up for his absence, for the scuff of his boots on the doormat, for the sound of his laugh, for the song he would hum while cooking breakfast. Waiting, wondering, dreading. Afraid. Afraid of the same thing he was afraid of. That if they stayed together forever, that if they became the thing they'd sought so long to be, they'd lose that special something they had, the thing that kept them needing, wanting, loving, the thing that stopped their passion from withering in on itself and dying.

 

One morning she'd woken up to the pinkish-hued light that came with his energy signature, a sight she hadn't seen for many years, not since their days with the X-Men. He was sitting at the end of the bed, his back to her, scrutinising a charged playing card in his right hand.

"Remy?" she'd said, sitting up and rubbing her bleary eyes. He didn't turn to her, didn't move at all.

"I can do it," was all he said. "I know exactly how t' do it. I can become everythin' Destiny prophesied I would be."

She'd known then. From that very moment she'd known how it would end. Out of fear of losing him she'd nurtured her own powers as he'd nurtured his, thinking that she would be able to watch him, steer him towards a path where he would always remain by her side. But the proliferation of possible futures was too great, too jumbled, too confused – all she could see was the thing he could –  _would_  – become, the thing she was powerless to stop. With every step he took towards reaching the ultimate potential of his powers; with every step that took him further away from her, she learned to overcome the obstacles that had prevented her from developing her own powers of foresight, the thing she had stolen unwillingly from her foster-mother, Destiny. Her proficiency grew to such a point that she outstripped her mother, that she was able to look into all points in time, past, present, future – a million possibilities became the instruments of all her whims. The door to Fate finally opened up to her on a vast and incomprehensible sea of change that she alone could shape if she so wished.

But by the time she had unlocked that door, and passed through onto the other side… By the time she had turned around to beckon him through to follow her… By that time all that stood where he had been was an empty space.

By that time, she'd lost him, and he'd already gone, never to return the same again.

 

She knew what he did while he was away.

She bore it because infidelity was the only way he could consciously remind himself why he loved her, because it made him long for the taste of her, for the comfort she gave him. Whenever he had come back from one of his time-jaunts, she had welcomed him back to their home as she always had, ever the faithful, patient wife – though in truth, while she feared he might not come back, his eventual return would always be a gnawing source of consternation to her. What she feared was that he would come to despise her for being the only constant in his ever-changing and eventful life.

But every time he had come back, it had been like meeting again for the first time; for a month, or two, or three – or maybe even four or five or six if she was lucky – they'd live together in perfect bliss, their passion revived by their separation; they'd feel as giddy as the moment they'd first laid eyes upon one another, the moment when they had collided in that incandescent starburst and first fallen in love.

And then that hush would begin to grow between them, that nagging doubt neither could bring themselves to voice. Their fear settled between them like an invisible barrier; the space in their bed grew wider. The monotony of their everyday lives and the routine of their lovemaking both frightened and bewildered them. That was when he would tell her he was leaving, that he still loved her, and that he'd be back soon.

Only this time he'd been gone four years. And this time she'd waited too long – stale, unloved, untouched, alone.

An empty shell, a husk.

She hated him.

She loved him more madly than she'd ever done before.

-oOo-

* * *

Rogue stood in her room, viewing herself in front of one of her many mirrors, absently twisting her wedding ring back and forth round her finger. She knew she had a choice to make as much as Remy had. If she chose, she could hold him back, she could keep him with her – she was the only person that had that power. It would be utter selfishness. But he would remain hers – until the next time he went away again.

But he would be  _hers…_

She stood, waiting, waiting for the inevitable. Much as she loathed using her powers, from the very beginning they had been intrinsically tied to him, and she always sought him out more from habit than comfort. She knew he was coming. It was the only way they could possibly end this.

She did not move when he finally stepped inside. She merely gazed at his reflection. She'd spent the past four years viewing him from behind smoke and mirrors. It seemed somehow easier to see him that way.

"Ah'm sorry," she broke softly into the silence.

"Me too," he answered quietly, shutting the door behind him.

She made no reply. He was being honest with her, and that was more than she could have asked for. His reflection moved a step closer to her, the sinuous, cajoling movements of his body sending signals stronger than words out to her. He stopped, regarding her from behind those soft, beguiling eyes. Everything about him was still unwitting, unconscious seduction.

"So," he continued conversationally, looking around. "Y' left our home…set up here?"

"Ah left  _mah_  home," she corrected him blandly, watching her face form the words, disembodied, in the mirror. "You seemed to come and go when y'pleased. Roma invited me to stay here, but Ah waited the year anyhow. When you didn't show up… Ah decided to take her up on her offer."

He nodded briefly, glanced at the carefully ordered chaos of her room, the specimens in her museum. "You left all our things behind," he noted somewhat reproachfully.

"Ah wanted to forget you," she replied bluntly. Her bottom lip trembled slightly in the mirror as she said it. She knew it was a lie. After all, all these things around her – the roses, the cards, the mirrors, the wind chime… even though he'd never touched a single one of them, she'd hoarded them because they reminded her of him. Or of what he was not. She wasn't certain anymore.

He, however, made no reply to her statement, casually strolling around the room, inquisitive as a stranger in a quaint old town. She watched his reflection, saw him step under the wind chime and regard it with grave appraisal. Then: "I recognise dis," he said. He touched one of the silver cylinders delicately, sending it spiralling. Its song tinkled into life, that familiar old melody, bringing sudden tears to her eyes. He knew. He knew her guilty secret. The way she watched him, the way she watched  _them together_  in all her dreams, trying desperately to work out why, when every thread of the future bound them so tightly together, they could never get it  _right_. He knew because he'd been watching them too, because all these things she had gathered around her, keepsakes of their alternate lives – they belonged to him too. They were his symbols as much as her own.

Rogue's fingers clung tightly to the edge of the dressing table. She watched him turn towards her reflection, his lips say the words:

"You've been watchin' them too."

She swallowed, looked away. Her throat was dry. All this time apart… believing it impossible to be together… and all the while they had been playing voyeur to one another, in the same places and the same times, just so far apart…

"Why?" she asked. He took another tentative step towards her, stopped.

"Wanted t' find out about you,  _chere_ ," he answered after a moment. "About me. About  _us_. Whether there's somethin' more, or somethin' less, or nothin' at all. And whether it really matters anyway." She said nothing. He continued. "S'like replayin' imperfect recollections of you," he mused, a corner of his lip curling, faintly nostalgic. "At first, I'd study dem. Dere walk. Dere smile. De flicker of an eyelid, de twitch of a finger… De way their lips would wrap round de rim of a cafe au lait…" His voice was low, thick with desire and she ached to hear it. "Sometimes I used t' watch dem 'til I thought I was goin' crazy," he half-whispered. "Had t' remind myself dey wasn't you. Dat you got somet'ing dey don't. Somethin' dat makes you unique. A part of myself. A part of my history."

 _Their history_. All the pain and the hurting, the trials that were never finished, that they could never overcome wherever or  _whenever_  they happened to be. All the knowledge accumulated throughout those long years, the secrets they were afraid to unravel for fear that it would kill their love. She finally broke free of the mirror, turning towards the window with a small, rueful laugh.

"Funny. Ah thought our history was what made me least desirable t' you."

She peeled back the curtain with one hand, looked out. Down below the Timestream danced, sending whirling iridescent rainbow colours upward and outward, bathing her face in its dappled light. This was a sight she had spent so many long, lonely hours torturing herself with ever since she had arrived here in Roma's secret place, knowing he was somewhere near yet agonisingly far away.

"That is what you'll become, Remy," she told him with a note of finality, the limpid glow of the Timestream replaying itself twice in her clouded eyes. He moved to stand beside her, his gaze following her own. The warmth, the proximity of his body filled the emptiness inside her, made her ache for the comfort of his arms once more.

"It's beautiful," he said, but his eyes were on her.

"It's lonely and cold and indifferent," she corrected him softly. "Is that how you want t' be?"

Her voice wavered and she hated herself for it. She desperately wanted to communicate the terrible truth to him, the truth that she could not escape from and that she wanted to negate to the very core of her being. That although the future was comprised of so many paths and so many possibilities, at the centre of its web lay only one purpose and one conclusion, the conclusion that would end them both forever.  _He was the Witness_. Yet how could she confess to him that that was the real reason why, whenever she had searched for a future  _them_ , all she had seen was a blackness, a nothingness, a void?

The warmth of his breath touched her neck, tearing her reverie to pieces. Had he really stepped so close?

"You know what I want," he answered huskily.

Her eyelids fluttered, closed.

"No." The word came as light as a feather. "You want to be free. And the Witness is freedom."

Closer.

"Is dat it? You afraid dat one day I'll stop wantin' you enough t' come back?"

Yes – that was what she feared.  _Familiarity breeds contempt_ ; that's what she wanted to say. She was tired of this, of the pull they had on each other, like satellites in orbit…  _Collide, clash, repel; collide, clash, repel…_  Even now they were tugging at one another, reeling one another in without looks – it was always the way, subtle as the tap-tap-tapping of morse-code, as a velvet hand climbing up her spine, knot by knot, settling at the base of her neck, tingling, electric… No words, such promise…

No – his hand was there, really there, on her back, in a touch so agonisingly familiar she burned.  _Clash_. His breath on her ear, his fingers caressing the nape of her neck, sliding through soft hair, gentle, so gentle… cradling her head, his eyes on her lips, willing her to look at him, to kiss him…

Only three centimetres and one night between them, and she wanted it so bad…

She turned with sudden greed, finding his mouth without even having to look anymore, her arms coming up to wind about his shoulders, to hold him close. A soft, involuntary moan escaped her as his tongue touched hers. Despite all the pain he had caused her, all the rage she felt for him, she pressed against him, her hands twisting in his hair, pulling him closer. And he was responding, his arms wrapping round her, desperate, fierce, crushing her hips against his, devouring her mouth, matching her violence with his own.

She wanted to kill him. She wanted to end this game of torture they played; she wanted to stab him in the place where he'd so often stabbed her, she wanted to slide her fingers over his skin and feel the warmth of his blood on her hands, to taste it in her mouth – it was the only way she could own him, make him hers. She wanted to end it, for it all to be over. She wanted to hate him with just as much passion as she loved him.

She couldn't.

She knew they were both too weak to stop playing this game, that they needed one another too much. And yet her foresight had told her that in all the futures she'd ever seen, this game had to end tonight. Tonight, after four years of loneliness, alone and without him, she would have to let him go for good.

They shouldn't have started this.

It shouldn't even have begun all those years ago, in the rain, under that old oak tree.

She tore away from his kiss, breathless, angry, tasting blood in her mouth yet too weak to push him away. It was beginning, she could feel it beginning, history repeating itself, and she didn't want it anymore, she  _couldn't_  want it anymore… But she  _needed_  him…

He reached for her again, his lips blazing a trail over her throat, hungry hands plucking the hem of her shirt and finding bare skin. "I want you…" he murmured, pleaded.

"We mustn't do this," she insisted, her voice no more than a notch above a whisper. He ignored her, his hands moving over her body, drawing a whimper from her mouth and giving her away; he lowered his head, grazed his breath against her ear, whispered knowingly; "…You want me too."

She did and she didn't, but he was already unclothing her, with such savage impatience that she clung to him, unable to fight, frightened at the gravity of this moment, their synthesis. Fate and time, two sides of the same coin, two ends of the same equation, the finest balance, something  _meant to be_. Yes. This was  _exactly_  how they were supposed to end.

"Ah'm just afraid," she spoke brokenly, hoarsely, her face buried in his shoulder, her fingers in his hair, "that if we don't stop now, Ah'll never be able to let you go again."

His hand touched her face, tilting her chin, those beautiful eyes finding hers, imparting an answer so simple, so terrifying that she shuddered to hear it.

"Then don't," he murmured, his mouth folding over hers once more, binding all questions, all protestations. This time there was no hesitation. The tempest had begun, the beginning of his homecoming ritual, the rites for which they could find no other substitute, the penance for all the terrible hunger they had inflicted upon one another.

-oOo-

* * *

Later.

The storm ended, leaving only an aching aftermath – silence; the air thick, raw with the memory of touch, of need, of taste, of flesh. They'd made love every which way either of them could possibly imagine, desperate, graceless, so much to make up for, so little time. And now there was nothing left. Nothing, except for the reason they were here – their choice.

_Don't make me stop, Rogue…I want t' be here inside of you…a part of you, for as long as I can…_

Over and over. Then over; finished.

She'd felt like a dulled blade. No more edge.

It was what he always did to her.

 

From the darkness, light slid across a silver sliver of the motionless wind chime, a thin pillar of liquid moonlight casting mottled spots of prismatic colour across the room. Rogue lay on her back, watching the light of the Timestream play on the ceiling, on the formless walls swathed in dark shadow. She knew what she had to do; she didn't want to do it. But the threads of so many futures clung so tenuously to this moment, and she knew… she knew…

_Honest goodbyes only work once or twice…They work once or twice then the rest must be lies…_

The words licked at the edge of her consciousness, the emptiness he'd eaten up and replaced with himself. In and out, in and out, constant as the tide.

Beside her, Remy lay on his side watching her, toying with a curl of her auburn hair, studying the way the pearly light played upon the coppery strands, waiting for her to say something. What to say? Rogue closed her eyes, rubbing slow, soft circles over her belly, feeling his warmth still inside her, the seed now planted, a skein, a thread of the future now set in motion. There it was – finished. She had to set him free.

_The rest must be lies…_

She opened her eyes, drew in a quivering breath. "Ah think Ah can let you go now," she announced quietly.

"Can you?" he asked, bringing the lock of hair to his face, flicking it thoughtfully against the tip of his nose. She dropped her hand to her side, hesitating, wishing he had not asked her.

"Yes," she answered at last, rolling over into the familiar warmth of his body, reaching out for him with arms and legs. "If it's what you want t' do."

He cradled her, tender this time, their bodies fitting together with artless perfection. She closed her eyes, listened to his heartbeat. She understood now. He was afraid that someday he would grow to love her so much that he couldn't bear to love her any longer. That was why he always ran away from her, why he could never stay.

But this time there would be no turning back. And she was tired of hating him. She was tired of wanting him and loathing him. He was right – she  _had_  intended to hurt him by telling Roma the truth about his powers. But she had also known that it was the only way they could stop playing with one another's hearts. And deep down, he knew it too. He knew he should stop hurting her, disappointing her, and leave her once and for all.

But she knew he could only do it for their sake, for the chance to make a better  _them_.

She nuzzled against his chest, waiting for his answer, for his choice.

"Rogue?" he began pensively, his fingers gliding through her hair. "Dis timeline Roma was talkin' about…"

"616?"

"Yah." He paused as her fingers spread against his chest, rubbing him lightly, fondly. He took in a breath and closed his eyes, relishing her touch, the pleasure he had so long foregone. "You seen it?" he asked.

She was silent a long moment, her fingers tracing the contours of his torso, lower, dragging through the fine track of dark hairs over his abdomen, making him shudder. "Yes – Ah've seen it," she finally replied, her tone a slumberous murmur. "A little."

He gave a low, appreciative rumble, both at her tender ministrations and in acknowledgement of her words.

"An' will we stay t'gether in dis 616 or not?" he continued huskily.

"Sometimes," she murmured in return.

"Like here?"

"Like here," she agreed.

She rolled off him, settling onto her back beside him. She knew the decision he'd make now. Taking his hand she pressed it against her naked flesh, letting him explore the soft tract of skin with his fingers to the place where she guided him. Her belly. He opened his eyes, swivelling his head round to face her, his dark red eyes inquisitive, but she made no answer to whatever question he would have asked, a question he could not articulate – he didn't know the thing he felt when he touched her there.

"Are you goin' t' leave then?" she asked him instead.

He was silent, evaluating her glance, her face, the pressure of her fingers against his palm, the softness of her beneath his touch. She saw him thinking, hesitating, hurting. He didn't want to give the answer they both knew to be inevitable.

"I don't know dat I want t' leave you yet," he answered at last, carefully, as if he might say the wrong thing.

"But you will," she rejoined softly, firmly. "You always do." She half-smiled, raising his hand and pressing his palm against hers. " _Time present and time past, are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past_." She paused in her recital, knotting their fingers together, holding on tight. "Isn't that what you always told me, whenever you were goin' t' leave me again?" A slight, watery curve of the lips. "You'll still be there, Remy. Wherever or whenever you go, Ah'll be watchin'."

She kissed his mouth one last time, rolled away.

"Ah'm goin' t' sleep now," she mumbled, her voice suddenly thick. A pause; a soft, wavering sigh. "Remy?"

"Hmm?"

"When you've made your decision… wake me up, won't you?"

"All right," he said. She let out a breath, a long, fluttering exhalation, bird-like, as if she had laid down a burden, as if no more weight rested upon her, nor ever would again. Resignation. He shifted up to spoon against her, folding his arms about her waist, planting the lightest of kisses against her shoulder blade.

"Anna Marie?" he whispered. She stirred. " _Je t'aime_."

 

Rogue squeezed his hand once, before she closed her eyes and began to dream once more.

-oOo-

* * *

[1] No, I'm not just making this up. In Gambit #24 (1999 series), an alternate version of Gambit, New Sun, was able to travel in time and into different timelines by using his biokinetic powers. And for more about the weird trans-temporal powers of the Witness, see Gambit & Bishop: Sons of the Atom #2-3.

_Next: An imprint too deep in the House of M universe..._


	7. Touching the Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When a S.H.I.E.L.D. enforcer absorbs a notorious criminal, neither of their lives are ever the same again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tale 7 is set in the House of M timeline. I would've loved to write more, but with the space constraints, of course that wasn't gonna happen. Maybe one day. A lot of this may not make sense unless you're familiar with the House of M limited series (that's all of the House of M I ever read anyhow), but I've tried to make it as accessible as possible. Enjoy.
> 
> -Ludi x

            The dream begins like this.

 

            The woman lies on the table, trussed up like a chicken while the man stands over her… And she is watching her, watching her watch the man, blue eyes wide and timorous and imploring as she sees the blade descend towards her, as it caresses the valley between her breasts in a parody of something artful and sensuous.

            _All you have to do is say ‘yes’, say you’ll do it and she goes free…_

            The man by the table grins, a shark-like grin of snow-white teeth, and she hears her voice, broken and unrecognisable, wailing, screaming…

            _No, no more, no more killin’, won’t do it, won’t be a part of it no more…_

            Her voice fades into an inarticulate moan of anguish.  There’s a sour flavour in her mouth, the bitter aftertaste of drugs.  Every movement seems sluggish, every image seems blurred and she slurs, _no more…_   And the row of white teeth expands, erupts, engulfs her…

            She wants to say no.  Every fibre of her being longs to say it.  No more sacrifice.  No more bargaining.  But the woman on the table, she has no part in this, and she can’t let her die.  She shouldn’t have got caught up in all this.  It wasn’t meant to happen this way.  Perhaps she could do it one more time, perhaps she could ply her trade in dissolution and death one more time just so the woman lives… And then it would be over and they could both walk free, and it’d be white picket fences and two point four kids and a pony…

            No, no more, she wasn’t going to gamble away her soul anymore…

            The grin again.  The blade flashes like strobe lighting in a darkened hall.

            _Still can’t make up your mind, eh?  Maybe I can help settle the matter for you, no?_

            The blade descends, deliberate and precise.  With a gesture full of macabre tenderness, he makes the first incision.

            The woman screams as the knife ruptures into soft, yielding flesh, teasing, torturing, not deep enough to kill but just enough to cause the most delicious and exquisite pain.  The scream careens through her senses, making her double over, making her retch.  She wants to be sick.  She no longer knows whether it’s the drugs or the stench of the blood or the fact that she’s so utterly helpless, that she has no control over the moment, over her powers; no way to save them both…

            Hot knife through butter.  _I’m going to scar her for the rest of her life.  Do you really think there’s nothing worse than death?  Will you still love her when I tear that lovely face to shreds?  Will she still love you when she looks in the mirror every morning and sees what you’ve done to her?_

            But she thinks – or she says aloud, or she screams – There are some things worse than death… Like walkin’ through life wit’ no soul left… and: - No more, I can’t do it no more…

            The woman screams, or never stopped screaming; she isn’t sure anymore.  She can feel it zigzagging through the web-like fabric of her nerves, white noise exploding through her senses until she curls up on the floor, she weeps, she wails in pure agony, in utter anguish because she knows, she knows… _How can I still have a soul without havin’ her love?_

            Dank, dry sobs rack her body and she finally gives in, she screams over the scream, _I’ll do it!  I’ll do it!  I do anythin’ you want Essex, jus’ don’t hurt her, don’t hurt her no more!_

            And then, she wakes up.

-oOo-

            A split second later and she had resurfaced from the depths, the nightmare spilling her out of its dank and terrible womb.  Her screams followed her to the surface, and she clawed at thin air, reaching for someone or something wrested from her before its time.

            “ _No no no, please no_!” she howled in a broken voice, and she was juddering, the whole world was juddering, shaking, exploding, shattering her into little pieces…

“She’s going into arrest!” she heard an unfamiliar voice seem to shout from all around her, and suddenly there were hands on her, holding her down, and then _white light, black light…_   She gasped a rasping breath, shuddered, and then all went still…

            Seconds, moments, hours passed.  And then suddenly there were sunlight cracks in the darkness, the frayed tatters of dreams; followed by a babbling murmur of voices and a nauseating sense of displacement.  The steady, staccato rhythm of a heart monitor somewhere beside and above her.

            _Beep.  Beep.  Beep._

            _Where am Ah?_

            “Agent Darkhölme?” The voice cut through the clamour in her flailing mind with a cool and clinical calmness. “Agent Darkhölme?  It’s all right, Agent Darkhölme, you are quite safe.  Your sight will return in just a moment.”

            There was a pause and she blinked; her eyelids flickered and she sensed rather than saw light.  Half a minute later and shadows appeared, a body formed, and the outline of a unprepossessing male face sketched itself into existence.  She stared up at it with uncomprehending wonder.

            “Where...?”

            “S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, Agent.  Medical bay.” The features had now coalesced into a bland, well-meaning sort of face that crowned a white, lab-coated body whose arms held a clipboard to its breast as if said clipboard and breast were part of the selfsame anatomy. “You’ve been here for a few days, Agent,” explained the voice. “Four, to be exact.”

            She blinked again; her eyesight was normalising.  The machine beside her was blipping steadily, pacing out the rhythm of her heart.  She followed the monitor with squinted eyes, traced it earnestly, feeling that what she saw was not real, was only a facsimile of her heartbeat…

            The doctor smiled genially.

            “Now there’s nothing to be worried about, Agent Darkhölme.  You’re in the very best of hands.”

            “But why –?”

            “We think the imprint ran too deep.  It seems the subject had some sort of empathic resonance with you.”

            “Empathic resonance?” she echoed weakly. “But that’s never happened before...”

            “Quite.  The diagnosis is, I will admit, currently hypothetical.  But according to our esteemed colleague, Dr. McCoy, it is the only conclusion we can come to.  And as you know… he is never wrong.”

            He smiled faintly, and looked down at his clipboard again with the very complacent air of knowing something about her that she herself – poor soul – was never likely to understand.  She bit back on her irritation, asked: “And the subject?  Did Ah...  Did Ah kill –?”

            “No.” The doctor turned away to a wall of monitors across the room. “Though for a while the subject’s brain activity was strangely... flat.” He paused, looked up at one particular screen and: “Ah,” very self-satisfied, “the subject appears to have awakened.  At the very same moment you did.” He turned back to her and smiled that faint, obsequious smile once more.

            “How very _interesting_.”

-oOo-

            The subject.  Remy LeBeau.  Gambit.  Terrorist, criminal, master thief.

            He’d been brought in five days ago by the public’s number one sweetie superhero, Captain Marvel, and half dead he may have been but he’d still managed to put up a fight.  Even with a power inhibitor clamped round his wrist he’d managed to wreak havoc in S. H. I. E. L. D.’s lobby, to the point that she’d had to crack him one on the jaw just to down him.  Justifiable force still hadn’t been enough.  The two of them had been grappling on the floor for a full minute, Raven barking out orders like a pitbull in the background, before she’d gone against protocol altogether, ripped off her glove, smashed her fist into his face just for good measure and –

            That was the last thing she’d remembered before waking up that morning in the med bay with Dr. McCoy’s stoogie standing over her.  And another bad case of someone else’s psyche pulling a Nightmare Before Christmas in her brain.

            Rogue stared at the mugshot on the screen and tried to be objective.  It didn’t help that the man’s nightmares were still colouring every single one of her thoughts since she’d first made the damn imprint.

            “He has a rap sheet longer than the Great Wall of frikkin’ China,” Raven was saying beside her. “Grand larceny, grand theft auto, grievous bodily harm, manslaughter, conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, yadda, yadda… And now we have resisting arrest and assaulting a government agent to add to the list.” She turned away from the screen, looked at Rogue and said in an accusative tone: “You shouldn’t’ve absorbed him, Anna.”

            “It was the quickest way to take him down,” Rogue replied, though with hindsight she now doubted her actions enough to regret them.  She wasn’t about to tell Raven that though.

            “It was reckless and it went against protocol,” Raven corrected her tersely. “Your powers are still unstable.  You can’t control them, Rogue.  You _know_ you’re only supposed to make imprints under the strict supervision of either myself or Dr. McCoy.”  She paused, whilst Rogue continued to stare at the face on the screen. _The face he can’t bear to see in the mirror…_

            Auburn hair, fallen angel eyes, and a mouth that looked like it could do all sorts of unmentionable things. 

            “Anna,” Raven continued when Rogue didn’t reply, “the imprint ran too deep.  I’m worried about you.  I know you’ve asked to sit in on LeBeau’s interrogation but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

            “So you’ve said.  About a hundred times before,” Rogue answered wearily.  She looked away from the screen with an effort and rubbed her eyes, trying to get the bloody images – _his_ nightmares – out from behind them.  She didn’t feel right.  _Nothing_ felt right anymore.

            “I’m going to keep saying it,” Raven was persisting, “even if you don’t listen.  Hank’s told me how this might affect you.  Insomnia, loss of concentration, even amnesia… Random resurfacing of his memories… Look, do I have to go on?”

            “No, momma,” Rogue retorted firmly, brushing past her foster-mother and dropping down into the hard-backed chair behind the desk. “You really don’t.  Because it’s a waste of time.  Ah’m goin’ into that interrogation room and you can’t stop me.  Period.  Ah _know_ things about him no one else does.  And that means Ah can be a big advantage to you.”

            “Or a liability,” Raven muttered under her breath.  She sighed and sat on Rogue’s desk, stared down sternly at her daughter. “Okay then, let’s assume you absorbed something useful.  So what exactly _do_ you know about LeBeau then?”

            “Ah dunno,” Rogue shrugged irritably. “ _Things_.  Nothin’ concrete yet, but they’ll come to me…”

            “I can’t count on you to conjure them up at the right time, Rogue,” Raven interjected pointedly.

            “Momma –”

            “No; look, Rogue.  You’ve made an imprint under completely unregulated conditions.  You could’ve absorbed _anything_ from him.  Something too close, too personal; something that could be a liability to _everything_ we’ve worked for.” She paused, exhaled. “We’ve been building this case for too long now for it to be jeopardised.  If you can’t come up with anything solid against LeBeau then I don’t want you in the interrogation room, Anna.  Because neither you nor I really knows what it is you could come out with.  Do you?”

            Rogue pouted indignantly.  She had something and she knew it – the thing that could nail him was right there swimming under her skull.  Along with all the other crap and baggage she had that was his _and the girl trussed up like a chicken whose lips he had kissed and whose body he had –_

            She shook her head violently and pressed a hand to her forehead saying heatedly: “It’s no use, momma, Ah’m goin’ in there and that’s final.  There _is_ someone… a man…yes, a man, Ah think, who’s behind him.  Ah just… Ah’m tryin’ to find a _name_ …”

            Beside her Raven sighed heavily.

            “All right.  I’ll let you in.  But if you pick up on anything – _anything_ – you _have_ to run it by me first.  Promise me that.” Rogue nodded vaguely and Raven slid off the desk, saying: “I don’t like this, Rogue.  That man’s mind could be a minefield and you have so little control over what you see.  If you were to stumble over something dangerous, Rogue…God help you, my daughter.”

            She walked out of the room and Rogue stared after her thinking, _don’t worry, momma… Ah think Ah already have… …_

-oOo-

            An empathic resonance.

            That was what Hank had said she shared with him.

            She didn’t fully understand what it meant, but she _felt_ it.  She knew it was there.  It was something that ran deeper than the imprint, than this strange little world and everything in it.

            Rogue stood on the deck of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s floating airship and stared down over the railings onto the night time city with the breeze tossing her hair and cooling her cheeks.

            She couldn’t sleep because there was a fever on her.  _His_ fever, and it was all his fault because she hadn’t even looked him in the eyes yet but he was right there inside her, a little knot in the pit of her stomach, a broken song on the tip of her tongue that had no tune.  She’d never been in love, not even close to it, but she asked herself now whether this is what it felt like.  This trembling in the night with this sickness in your stomach and your heart in your mouth.

            She thought that _this_ is what he felt for the woman, the golden-haired woman in his dreams and his nightmares.  Love.  And devastation, guilt, shame and emptiness at her loss.

            Rogue closed her eyes and put her face to the wind.

            _He_ must’ve killed her.  The demon in his nightmares must have killed her.  The demon had promised him her life for his cooperation and even though he’d done everything the demon had asked of him, the demon had still taken her away.  He’d promised and he’d lied.

            _Belle is dead to me.  She’s gone_.

            Rogue opened her eyes.

            “Belle…” She whispered the name.  A wind chime tinkling softly on a summer breeze.

            That was what he thought of when he said it.

            She buried her face in her hands and moaned softly.

            Mystique hadn’t meant it that way, but this was danger of a different kind.  And she’d stumbled on it.  She’d stumbled on it, she’d opened up the chasm and fallen through and now there was no certain way of ever turning back.

-oOo-

            Rogue had seen him, of course.  Several times.  The photo they had on file, on the Most Wanted lists sent out through every state and city; even in the flesh, on the day they’d first brought him in.

            But nothing had prepared her for that moment walking into the interrogation room, when she looked at him and saw him sitting there at the table, slouched back in his chair as if he were about to indulge in some desultory if not strictly friendly conversation; not in an interview with the world’s most powerful intelligence security organisation.

            He was beautiful.

            And when he looked at her with only fleeting interest he gave her such a flash of skin-on-skin, such a heady rush of warm, liquid kisses that she felt her cheeks flush and her breath hitch and her blood boil.

            He itched the strangeness in her as if he’d been born to do so all his life.

            “Remy LeBeau,” Raven greeted him in her hard-as-nails voice, taking a seat opposite him. “I’m Agent Darkhölme.  And this...” She paused and gestured to Rogue, who took a seat, jelly-limbed, beside her. “This is Rogue.”

            He looked at her, seeming a little amused at the codename, and Rogue flushed again, this time from embarrassment and indignation, trying to hide both and failing miserably.

            “She doesn’t say much,” Raven smiled without smiling. “Unless, of course, she has something worth saying.  We’re letting her sit in on the interview today.  We hope you don’t mind,” she added, with false and excessive politeness.

            He didn’t take the bait.  Just shrugged, like what the hell did it matter to him whatever they did?  He’d been ninety-six hours in a coma, had had the shakes twenty-four, had been living on whatever they poured through an intravenous drip, and he felt like shit.  All he cared about was his next bath and his next fucking lay.

            Raven smirked, the kind of smirk Rogue knew signalled danger; from her lap she produced a thick, fraying, dog-eared file and slammed it on the table with a resounding thud.  He didn’t even bother looking at it.

            “Remy LeBeau,” Raven repeated, this time her voice dripping ice, “codename Gambit, loosely affiliated with the Thieves Guild of New Orleans, master criminal, mutant terrorist, known links with the Human Resistance Movement.”  She thumbed the pages of the file, offering him a peek here and there – an offer that he didn’t particularly bother to take up.  She slapped the file shut again and glared at him. “We know you’ve been funding the Sapiens’ pathetic attempts at dissension with your tainted cash, LeBeau.  We know you’re somehow involved with this ‘genetic therapy’ the sapiens are queuing up for.  We even know why.  So let’s cut to the fucking chase.  We want to know _who_.” She leaned forward, eyes flaring in the dingy light. “Who’s behind these sick medical procedures that are turning sapiens into _us_?”

            He’d been staring right back at her, returning her venomous gaze without even an ounce of expression.  Rogue had to give it to him.  He was just about as hard as Raven was; and more than just a damn sight insolent.

            “You’re wrong,” he said at last, in a conversational tone; his voice was like whiskey and molasses and made her shiver. “You _don’t_ know why.  An’ if y’don’t know why...” he paused and lightly thumbed the power disruptor on his wrist, “den you don’t know anyt’ing about anyt’ing else about me.” He looked away, bored. “I want my lawyer.”

            “Pfft.” Mystique scoffed. “What are you, fucking stupid?  But then I guess a busy little bastard like you doesn’t have the time to watch the TV or read the papers.  You’re being detained under the Sapiens Criminal and Terrorist Act.  We can keep you in here for 90 days without evidence _or_ legal representation.”

            He didn’t even look at her.

            “I’m not Sapiens.”

            If he had yawned, he would’ve overdone it.

            “You don’t have to be.”

            “You mistake me for some scum off de street, Agent Darkhölme.  I do my homework, and I’ve read de new law.  I t’ink de wording’s ambiguous enough for me to contest dis in court.  What will de press say when dey see you held a mutant citizen in detention wit’out no evidence, and all in de name of our great ruler Magnus hisself?” Did she detect a thinly veiled sarcasm there, or was he just playing for the cameras? “I don’t t’ink I have t’ say anyt’ing.  We’re done here.”

            Rogue felt it.  Raven, fuming inwardly, wanting to rip out his throat and ram it up his ass – and containing the urge about as successfully as _she_ was at containing the way he was making _her_ squirm.

            “You can call up as many of your errant lawyer friends as you want,” Raven hissed through gritted teeth. “We _are_ the law, and we have all the evidence we need to keep you locked up for a _long_ time to come.”

            “So why am I here then?  You aimin’ t’ make a deal?” He paused, smiling glibly. “Cos I hate t’ have t’ tell you dis but I ain’t about to shop anyone’s ass.  And you know why?” He leaned forward and showed his teeth in an infuriating smile. “I don’ know who de fuck you’re talkin’ about.”

            _… man grins, a shark-like grin of snow-white teeth… row of white teeth expands, erupts, engulfs her…_

            “He’s lyin’,” Rogue cut in quickly, so quickly that his gaze shot towards her as he leaned, frozen in place; she felt that gaze as if it had scored itself right into her heart and she averted her eyes in a sudden, awkward movement.

            “An’ you’re bluffin’,” he shot back, mistaking her embarrassment for ineptitude.  Raven merely laughed, a hint of triumph in her voice.

            “We don’t need a telepath to find out what we need to know, Mr. LeBeau,” she informed him gleefully. “Especially with someone whose mind is as slippery as yours.  Rogue here has much more … ‘subtle’ ways of teasing out information.”

            She felt it this time, in more ways than one.  His glance grazing over her with a renewed interest.  Hostile, questioning, curious interest.  She couldn’t return the look without wanting... Something.  Him?  Maybe.  Oh God.

            “You’re bluffin’,” he said again, this time with more confidence in his voice. “If you t’ink bringin’ a pretty face in here to distra–“

            “We know he made you do it,” she blurted out suddenly, not knowing where the words were coming from, cutting him off mid-sentence.  Once more she felt his stare, burning her up, making her heartbeat quicken, making those silky smooth memories that weren’t her own brush against her consciousness.

            “Who?” he said, this time soft, this time testing...

            _Essex..._

            “Essex,” she spat out again without thinking.

            Gambit sat back in his chair with an almost imperceptible exhale of breath; she felt rather than saw the sharp, split-second glance that Mystique shot at her.

            “I don’ know what you’re talkin’ about,” he finally said.  He didn’t even bat an eyelid, but his voice was flat, controlled – too controlled – and suddenly she felt brave enough to meet his eyes.  His eyes, this time questing and suspicious; her own, tinged with confusion at the things they knew but could not see.

            They sat for a moment, staring at one another.

            Whatever Hank meant when he said ‘empathic resonance’, the both of them felt it then.

            “I think we’ve talked enough.” Mystique broke the charged silence with a frosty abruptness. “We’ll pick this up again tomorrow.” She scraped her chair back, stood in a sudden, jerky movement.  Rogue reluctantly averted her eyes from that strange and penetrating gaze.  Her limbs felt light and gelatinous as she, too, finally stood.  Raven was already at the door.

            “Rogue,” she said, almost warningly.

            Rogue followed, glancing back over her shoulder only once.

            When she did, it was to find his eyes still on her own.

 

            Raven marched down the corridor like a miniature storm cloud, neither stopping nor talking until she’d reached the nearest corner where she whipped round and faced her daughter with a recriminating glare.

            “I thought we’d agreed you’d tell me _everything_ before we started,” she hissed pointedly.

            “Sorry,” Rogue replied. “It just came up as we were talkin’.  Ah hadn’t picked up on it before.” Mystique’s gaze was cold and level, prompting Rogue to repeat somewhat sheepishly: “ _Sorry_.  It’s not like it’s somethin’ Ah can control, momma.  You _know_ that.”

            Raven frowned, sighed, then relented.

            “Do you have any idea about the type of person he is, Rogue?” she questioned earnestly, pointing fiercely at the door they’d just walked from. “And just how close he could bring us to solving this case?  At all costs this ‘genetic therapy’ ring must be stopped.  It’s the decree of Magnus himself, and even if it wasn’t... such abominations _cannot_ be allowed to continue.”

            “Ah know,” Rogue answered uncomfortably. “It’s just...” she halted, looked back over her shoulder, felt the silkiness in her mind give way to darkness and cold terror, “he’s not a bad man, momma.”

            “That may very well be, daughter,” Raven answered gravely, “but we all make choices, and this... _thief_ …has made the wrong ones.  Time and again.  He is the friend of terrorists, Rogue.  He is our enemy.” She turned and walked away, throwing back over her shoulder: “Now, this Essex character... If you get anymore on him, come to me first.  This could be the only lead we get.”

-oOo-

            She sat in bed and stared at the clock blinking 02:56 in the darkness.

            She’d tried to sleep, but every time she tried they came back.  The memories that weren’t hers.  The silky ones, of _Belle_ , of skin-on-skin and warm, liquid kisses, over and over and over until she thought she was going to go insane.  They’d shared a single _real_ look in that interrogation room and now it was like there was a broken dam spewing out everything it had at her.  All those memories, all the good ones, all the sweet, trembling, pleasurable little ones…

            And then there were the cold, dark, terrible, unspeakable ones – flesh of a different kind, gaping and bloody and wide-open, with screams and pain and burning and twisting and _oh God, oh God, make it stop, no more, no more, please..._

            Rogue whimpered and pulled the duvet up over her knees, burying her face in the soft eiderdown, feeling tears spilling again, thick and fast and so hot they burned.  He’d cried like this.  Spent whole nights crying like this, during the cold, dark horror and after it, when he’d lost _her_.  They were right – the imprint had run too deep.  She had no right to any of this, no right to know thoughts and feelings this visceral, this indescribably horrible, even less so because she was using them as a weapon, a weapon against him...

            _This is wrong, all wrong… Ah need t’ make it right…_

            With sudden determination she threw aside the covers and jumped out of bed.  Wiping the tears from her cheeks she went to her wardrobe and took out her S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform.  As she dressed she had no idea of the course she was going to take, nor where it was going to lead her.  All she knew was that he had taken away a part of her, and she wanted it back.

-oOo-

            The guard standing at the doors of cell block Z was one she didn’t recognise, but then, she didn’t usually do the night shifts.  She smiled at him as she approached, tugged off her glove and slid her thumb over the door’s scanner.

            “You’re working late tonight, Agent,” he observed with a comradely grin.

            “Business,” she answered, slipping her glove back on. “Ah drew the short straw.”

            _Beep._

            The door began to slide open.

            “Oh.” He nodded sympathetically as she walked on through. “Well, if you get any grief, just gimme a call,” and he patted the cattle prod at his thigh.

            “Thanks,” she answered dryly, “but Ah think havin’ vampire skin oughta be enough t’ keep that scum sleepin’ like babies.”

 

            He was sitting on his cell bed when she entered, eyeing her with the bleary look of someone who was tranqued up to the hilt.  There was congealed blood caking his right nostril and he needed a shave, but she still got that slippery, silky feeling when she saw him, and she still had to swallow it as the titanium door slid shut behind her.

            “Good evenin’, Mr. LeBeau,” she said, with as much formal civility as she could muster.  As soon as she spoke his glance changed to one of recognition – did she detect a sparkle in his eye?

            “Woulda been better if you’d brought de whips and chains, chere,” he grinned. “Dis cell ain’t no fun.  Would at least’a thought you woulda tied me up.”

            “Sorry to disappoint, but Ah’m still on duty.”

            Was she flirting with him?

            “Right,” he smiled, slow, sexy, like picking up on her cue was his second nature.  What the hell?  She _knew_ it was. “So you’re de good cop.  Where’s de bad cop t’night?  Don’ tell me she’s de one who gets all de fun while you do all de borin’ stuff…”

            She said nothing, inwardly irritated, sensing he was toying with her, sensing he knew why she was there already.  Was she really so transparent?

            “Tell me,” he asked in his best facsimile of nonchalance, “where did you get such a bitch for a mother?”

            “She ain’t my real mother.”

            “Ahhh,” he grinned again. “Dat explains it.  Couldn’t figure out how a sweet t’ing like you could be related to some fucked up psycho-bitch like her.” She pursed her lips shut, refusing to let him get to her – it was enough that his smile was making her mouth go dry and her stomach go oopsy-daisy on her... “So, Agent ‘Rogue’.  Dat de handle you go by?  Sounds pretty good – if you was a superhero or somet’ing...”

            “Are you done yet?”

            “Mebbe.  Gotta admit, you ain’t givin’ me much t’ work with, chere.”

            “That’s a shame,” she replied with a whole wealth of meaning, moving away from the door, seeing her chance to get even. “’Cos you happen t’ have given me a whole damn lot to get mah teeth into, sugah.”

            That shut him up.  Eyes that were bleary and unfocused were suddenly sharp and alert.  He’s been fakin’, she realised. Damn, he’s good.  He must absorb the drugs faster than Dr. McCoy’s findings suggested.  But how...?

            “S.H.I.E.L.D. knows a whole lot more than you think,” she continued quietly. “At least, they could do.  All they have to do is tap into your mind.  And believe me, it wouldn’t take a whole lot t’ do that.”

            He stared at her a moment, then laughed.  A short, mocking laugh.

            “You oughta know better den t’ pull dis kinda stunt, chere.  It ain’t your style, and trust me, I know a lot about style.”

            “And what would mah style be?” she asked, her eyebrows working with annoyance.

            “You got de brawn, chere, as well as de looks, but dis…” He tapped the side of his head dryly. “Dat killer punch you landed me wit’ gave me a headache and a half, plus four day’s worth in La-La Land, but you ain’t gonna get me to talk wit’ dis bull about mind-readin’ and telepaths.  Even the world’s greatest can’t get a handle on my brain.”

            “Really?” She pulled up a chair and sat opposite him. “Ah sympathise.  Ah got exactly the same kinda problem.”

            She paused; he stared at her, weighing up her words.  For a moment, he looked as though he would speak, but something stopped him.  He merely stared at her even harder.  Not with hostility this time, nor even cold curiosity, but with interest.  Real interest.  She felt her cheeks begin to redden again.

            “That wasn’t a punch Ah knocked you out with, LeBeau,” she said softly, intimately. “It was this.” She pulled off her glove, raised her hand and showed him her palm. “It was my skin.” She lowered her hand and met his gaze. “Ah was in a coma too, y’know.  For four days.  Ah woke when you woke, at the very same moment.  Ah’m sorry.  Ah know it was painful.  It does tend t’happen a lot to the people Ah touch.”

            There was a bitterness in her voice that she couldn’t quite control, and she knew he’d sensed it before she regretted saying it.  His gaze became even more intense, and she quickly averted her eyes, her breath quickening.

            “So dat’s what happened,” he murmured, still staring at her. “Shoulda known.  You absorbed me.”

            She looked up at him sharply.

            “How did you –?”

            “I told you,” he replied deprecatingly. “I do my homework.” He glanced at her askance, suddenly suspicious. “Why are you here?”

            She couldn’t hold his gaze, not for longer than a few moments.  What was wrong with her?  It wasn’t the first time she’d absorbed the darker side of a subject, but it’d never stayed with her like this, consuming her night and day, making her crave and want, keeping her awake at night...

            “The imprint ran too deep,” she answered on a breath. “You’re inside me.  All the time.  Twenty-four-seven.  Ah can’t sleep.  Ah can’t...” she blushed, “Ah can’t _look_ at you without... without...”

            She trailed off, feeling exposed and stupid and foolish, feeling as if her breath were about to explode from her mouth in one big torrent and leave her, open and deflated, on the floor.  She couldn’t even look at him to see the slow grin cross his face.

            “Well, if dat’s all de problem is...”

            “Ah’m bein’ serious!” she cut in agitatedly, and he returned in a low voice: “So am I.”

            Something in his tone caught her off guard and she glanced up at him, this time finding herself able to look him in the eye.

            “Ah _know_ you,” she told him earnestly, leaning towards him as a sunflower to the sun. “And it ain’t just the imprint.  Ah never set real eyes on you until today, but Ah can’t shake this feelin’... _ugh_!” She turned away in sudden disgust. “What have yah done t’ me?!”

            “Take off dis disruptor and maybe I can help you find out,” he murmured, cajoling, seductive; but she laughed mirthlessly and said: “You touch me again and Ah might just kill yah.  And Ah ain’t jokin’.”

            “Who says we need t’touch...?”

            “Don’t make me.  Please.” A pause. She closed her eyes, rubbed the bridge of her nose and suddenly felt silk again. “You loved her.  So bad.  That’s what Ah’m feelin’, when Ah close mah eyes, when Ah look at you, when Ah try t’sleep at night.  You loved her like it was a madness, and the only way to make it better was to... was to...” She halted, gulping in breaths, pressing her thighs together, tight together. “ _He_ threatened her, almost killed her... that was how he made you do it, that was how he made you do what he _wanted_ you to do...” She stopped suddenly, drained, empty; when she opened her eyes again and looked at him, it was to see him looking back at her in haggard, pale-faced astonishment.  For a few moments, he was just as aghast as she was.  And then the expression left.  Turned to hate, quiet, calm, controlled hate.

            “You’re not gonna get a t’ing from me,” he told her, that whiskey and molasses voice taut and tight with anger, and she couldn’t bear it, she stepped towards him again, hands outstretched, pleading.

            “Remy…” she began, in the voice Belle had used in her – his – dreams… And his face erupted in a crescendo of sudden grief and rage.

            “Get out!” he screamed at her. “ _Get de fuck out_!”

            Almost as soon as it had come out of her mouth she’d regretted her mistake and she stood there a moment, chest heaving, looking down at his beautiful, angry, anguished face and wondering why that look was so heart-wrenchingly familiar, more familiar even than an imprint could inform her when he was this close, when he was already this much a part of her…

            Without another thought, she turned on her heels and fled.

-oOo-

            Mystique was worried about her.  Truth be told, she was worried about herself.

            This had gone too far, she said.  Way too far.  She shouldn’t have taken Rogue into the interrogation room that day.  Something had happened.  Not just to her, but to him as well.  He wasn’t talking.  He’d clammed up tight as a miserly old fist round its last wad of cash.   And whenever Raven went back into that room to sort out Rogue’s mess, he’d sit there with his eyes staring at the space next to her.  As if he expected _her_ to be there.  To plead with him in a voice that wasn’t hers and beg him to make it better if he could.

            But he couldn’t.  She was gone.  They both were.

 

            So Rogue went to Hank.  She asked him what it all meant, even if she expected no answer.

            “Empathic resonance,” he repeated after her, bounding briskly about his lab whilst singing a hymn of _hmms_ and _hahs_ over bubbling phials and shimmering laptop screens.  He stopped and stared at her over the top of his glasses. “Oh yes.  Oh _that_.  Well, I did talk to Raven about it.  How very dangerous it was.  How you should stay off _any_ case until fully recovered.  Still, I don’t think –”

            “But what does it _mean_?” she interrupted him, as he examined a phial of clear liquid that slowly turned to a deep shade of lavender. “What _happened_?  Why is he still in my head and my thoughts and – _everywhere_?”

            “Hm,” Hank intoned distractedly. “I’m not sure _what_ exactly happened, if I have to be brutally honest.  And that is oh- _so_ -demeaning to any scientist of my calibre, but there it is…” He paused, laid down the phial, and looked directly at her. “You were both out for exactly the same amount of time, Rogue,” he said quite seriously, almost gravely. “And your brain wave patterns – exactly the same.  _Exactly_.  For four short days (or long, as the case may be), you shared the same slice of what I like to call ‘empathic-space-time’…” He looked like he was about to get lost in some theory of his, but stopped short and added: “Why?  Because your minds, your bodies, your (dare I say it?) _souls_ , share some sort of resonance.  It’s not common between strangers, but it happens from time to time.  Hm, how should I explain it?  Like long-lost twins, like long-lost loves, like…”

            “Fate?” she asked, and he stared at her.

            “Fate?” He thought about it a moment, his scientist’s brain rebelling against the idea before finally, begrudgingly, he nodded. “Hm.  Yes.  Exactly.  Fate.”

-oOo-

            Remy was having his hour’s exercise.

            She stood outside the cage and watched him.  Doing pull-ups in sweatpants and sneakers and a layer of sweat he wore pretty damn well and knew it.  He also knew she was watching him.  She hadn’t exactly been making a secret of it, not to him, though it was certainly a secret to the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and most certainly from her mother.

            “How are you?” she asked him through the electric fence.  It was the first time she’d spoken to him in days, but he showed no surprise, continuing his exercises, not even looking at her as he replied.

            “Lesse.  I’m bein’ held without charge, I ain’t allowed my phonecall and every night I still got de shakes from dat absorption shit you pulled.” He pulled himself up to the iron bar, muscles pumping, sweat dripping, knowing he was making her squirm and not-so-secretly enjoying it. “You work it out.”

            She continued to watch him, letting him tease her.  She could afford to because she knew, on some level, that whatever he was making her feel she was doing the same to him. _Somehow._   She could sense it, but she had no name for it… the feeling that they had met somewhere, _somewhen_ , before.

            “Tell me about Belle,” she spoke up boldly, expecting another violent reaction; but this time he didn’t even look at her, didn’t even pause in his work out.

            “You sure like walkin’ de edge,” he commented wryly. “You were anyone else, I prob’ly woulda found a way to knock de livin’ daylights outta you for dat.” But suddenly he was looking at her, grinning. “Lucky for you I gotta t’ing about ballsy women.”

            She allowed a small smile to curl her lips.  He was cute… but she wasn’t going to let him avoid the subject _that_ easily.

            “Ah know Essex betrayed you,” she said softly. “Ah know he killed her.”

            His expression went deadly serious again. “Den you don’t know a lot, chere,” he said.  He stopped, hung from the bar a moment, letting her see as much as possible before dropping to his feet with a sharp _thud_. “Belle didn’t die,” he told her simply.

            “What?” she whispered to herself.  Hadn’t she felt the loss, _his_ loss, so acute inside her as if it were all her own?  Hadn’t she felt the woman’s death as if it were his – her – own?

            “Belle didn’t die,” he repeated dispassionately from the middle of the cage. “Essex kept his side of de bargain, at least in _dat_ matter.  But, knowing what I was, what I did and who I worked for… _Dat_ was enough to drive her away from me.  Her and me – _us_ – we died anyway.  If Essex killed her, _dat_ was de way he did it.”

            She stood there, weighing it up.  Feeling a little piece of the puzzle lock into place.  It was only when she looked up at him again that he began to walk towards her.  She felt the guard – who had up till now been waiting behind her – suddenly stir at his advance; but at a motion from her he stopped there, alert, watching warily from the spot she’d told him to.

            “Ah thought,” she began, “Ah thought you weren’t gonna tell me any–”

            “I changed my mind,” he cut her off, halting an arm’s length away from her.  All slick, tanned skin and pheromones. “You’ve been watchin’ me,” he said, changing the subject, ignoring her helplessly wandering eyes. “A lot.  Even when you t’ink I don’t know you’re there.  But sometimes, I feel you.  Your eyes.”

            “Does it bother you?” she asked him in a voice suddenly low and thick…electric.  He smiled, lop-sided, and shook his head.

            “No.  At least, I don’t t’ink so.  Not in de way you mean.  Maybe in other ways.”

            He walked up to her then, right up to her, right up against the wire fence, and she held her breath, smelling him, the heat and the sweat and the raw desire making her go into a tailspin… And the guard behind her suddenly moved forward, one hand on his cattleprod, the other on the electric fence remote, and she quickly held out her hand, telling him to stop, telling him it was okay, she was safe, at least _she thought so_ … The man halted again, held his position with a grudging silence.

            But Remy had barely noticed.  He was looking down at her with those beautiful burning eyes she knew so well, and she didn’t know why she was holding back, why she didn’t close the inch between them and press herself against the fence too, against _him_ , but this way she had him, she had him without losing herself in the process…

            “I dream about you,” he rasped through the wire, his breath laboured, his gaze intense. “Ev’ry night.  Been askin’ myself whether it’s possible I coulda absorbed you too, chere, because you’re right there inside me… And I know you in ways I ain’t supposed to, that ain’t even possible…”

            They each took in a shallow breath, breathing in one another, making it worse…

            “Ah can help you…” she whispered through the wire and he laughed, light-headed.

            “Help me?  Tell me I can touch you right now and I t’ink either it’d dispel your ghost or make it haunt me forever…”

            “No,” she shook her head weakly. “You ain’t meant t’ be in here…”

            “Neither are you…”

            “Shh.” She put a gloved finger to his lips through the wire and said: “You ain’t a bad man, Remy LeBeau.  And you shouldn’t _be_ here.” She did it then.  Pressed herself against the fence, against him, against all his heat and his hardness and the familiarity of him… “Ah have a plan,” she whispered. “Be ready for me tonight.”

            “Rogue…”

            “Ah mean it.  Ah’m willin’… and Ah don’t know why.  But Ah’m gonna do it anyway.” She raised her face, so close to his, so far away. “Be ready for me, Remy.  Now stand back.”

            He stood back.  She gave him once last look before whipping back round, trying to hide the heat from her face.

            “Turn it back on,” she barked to the guard. “Shock him if you have to.”

            She looked back at him as she walked away, looked at him looking at her with a wall of electricity now seething between them.

-oOo-

            Agent Worthington was in charge tonight.

            He stood outside cell block Z and looked down at her with concern.

            “I don’t think this is a good idea, Agent Darkhölme.  I don’t think you should go in there.”

            Rogue looked up at him, trying not to look too desperate, too imploring…

            “He’s opening up to me,” she said. “Raven said so.  He won’t talk to her, only to me.  Give me a minute with him and Ah may very well crack this case wide open for y’all.”

            “I don’t know, Rogue,” he murmured doubtfully, his tone more personal. “I heard about what he did in the exercise mesh this afternoon.  That kid has the power to charm others –”

            “Even with a power disruptor on?”

            “I mean he probably has something in mind,” the agent with the angel wings warned her severely. “You need to be careful.”

            “Ah know.  And Ah will.  Ah promise.  Just five minutes.  Please.”

            And she knew he’d sigh and relent before he did.

            “All right.  Five minutes.  Go.”

            She thanked him, slid off her glove and jammed her thumb onto the scanner with impatience already weltering away inside of her.

-oOo-

            He was already up, sitting on his bed, waiting for her.  She came in and closed the door behind her, looking at him, wondering if this was the right thing to do and knowing instinctively – _yes_ , it was.

            “I won’t let you do this,” was all he said.

            “Tough,” she went to him, knelt down on one knee and went to unlock the power disruptor at his wrist; but it simply fell off in her hands as she touched it.

            “How -?” she began, but he interrupted her with a slight smile on his face.

            “I’m a t’ief, chere, and when you ain’t got de lockpicks you learn of ways t’ improvise.”

            She looked up into his face, her eyes questing.

            “How long?”

            “Long enough.  Long enough to case out dis joint and case out your people.  And _you_ , chere.” He stood and she took a step back; not far enough to put any great distance between them, but enough for her to wish she was closer.

            “So now you know how it is, chere.  How easy it is for me to bust outta dis place.  I don’t need your help, chere.  I don’t want it.” He walked to the door, peered out to see if the coast was clear and she followed right behind him, saying hotly: “But you can’t, Gambit.  There’s one of you and dozens of them.  They’ll kill you before they set you free.”

            “I doubt it,” he snorted, pulling off his shirt and tossing it aside – she stared at him in confusion but didn’t question him. “They need me too much.”

            “Let me help you,” she insisted.  He swung round and stared her down as if a glance from him could make her back away, but she didn’t, she refused to.

            “Why d’you want to help me?” he asked her outright.  And this time she didn’t flinch.

            “Because this is one right in a world full of wrongs.  And because Ah’d rather die than see you hurt, Remy.” He stared at her intently and she continued in a lower voice: “Ah ain’t just makin’ this up, am Ah?  You feel it too, right?  That the day Ah imprinted you wasn’t the first day we laid eyes on each other.  That we’ve been here before, _together_ …  _Right_?”

            There was desperation in her voice and she thought he’d laugh and turn away from her but he didn’t.  He looked, he watched; he shook his head in sudden consternation.

            “Dis crazy,” he hissed. “You help me, you could lose everyt’ing you’ve worked for here.”

            “But Ah don’t belong here neither,” she shot back. “Yah said it yourself, Remy.  And you were right.  Ah don’t.  _None_ of us do.  Somethin’s wrong here, somethin’ doesn’t fit…” She paused as he looked away, shaking his head with uncertainty, but she took his face between gloved hands, put her face within an inch of his and said: “Ah trust you, Remy.  All Ah need is for you to trust me.  _Please._ ”

            This time his stare was intimate, personal, flickering, burning, assessing every word, every look, every touch she’d given him…  And suddenly there it was again, more than just a spark, a flare, an imprint; more than just a bunch of borrowed memories she couldn't connect to the real him, the real Remy.  She _did_ know him.  Intimately.  And she couldn't understand it but suddenly their mouths were only inches away from one another, and she felt his breath quicken against her lips as they parted and she whispered: “Remy...”

            He was so tense, as if holding himself together, as if holding himself back; and he whispered back on a strangled breath: “Oh God...”

            She felt his breath caress her face, her hair, her ear, her neck, and she closed her eyes, wanting so badly to kiss him she thought the craving might kill her.  And when she opened her eyes again and dropped her hands to his shoulders, it was all she could do to stare right back at him, to tell him she knew the risks, she knew what she would be sacrificing, that she was ready if only he was…

            And suddenly he was.  With one sharp jerk he’d spun her round, and she could feel his body pressed against her back, warm and hard and urgent… One arm locked around her neck, the other at her breast, his fingertip pressing against the S.H.I.E.L.D. badge there, giving it the slightest wisp of a charge which she nevertheless felt thrumming painfully right there inside her own body…

            “Careful, chere,” he murmured against her hair. “Feels weird, I know, but no quick movements and you’ll be fine.  Now lissen and jus’ do what I tell you.  First we gonna bang on de door, nice an’ slow.  Now go.”

            She didn’t need to second guess.  He knew what she’d had planned from the start.  No need to question why or how.  She reached out slowly and slammed her fist hard against the door, one, two, three.  She heard footsteps, heard the guard outside go for the door, and Remy swung back towards the bed, backing away from the door as it slid open with the guard looking in, seeing them standing there, the power disruptor lying on the floor, the pink, humming glow of the badge at her breast…

            His mouth dropped open.

            “Agent Worthington…” she breathed, and the fear in her voice was almost genuine. “Get Agent Worthington.”

            The guard sped off and she felt him smile against her hair, felt his hot breath there as he softly congratulated her: “Good girl…”

            He dragged her backwards whilst there was scuffling outside, whilst a formation of guards spread outside the cell door with guns and tazers and cattleprods and a whole arsenal of weaponry that was nothing compared to the array of mutant powers the men themselves carried…  But he had the upper-hand, he’d turned her into a time-bomb and he had nothing to lose and there was not a single one of them there that was oblivious to that fact.  And then there was Agent Worthington in the middle of them all, gazing at her with a sad _I told you so_ on his face…

            “This is a bad idea, LeBeau…” he began, but Remy held her tighter, increased the charge by just the smallest fraction, and it jangled, shuddered through her nerves like an electric current coursing through her.

            “I want them away,” was all he ordered, his voice calm, controlled. “I want all those other guards away, otherwise I blow your agent to hell and take everyone down wit’ her.  Do it.” There was a pause when Worthington looked at her as if to confer and Remy shouted: “ _Now!_ ”

            No time to think.  A flick of the hand and the guards had dispersed back into the corridor.

            “Now shut the door,” Remy barked.  Worthington’s movements were slow, measured, precise, and he never broke eye contact, just the way they’d been trained.  It seemed a painfully long time before he was done and when he was he held up his hands.  Rogue knew what he was going to do.  Negotiate, reasonable and patient, following protocol down to the proverbial letter.

            “This is a waste of time, LeBeau,” he began, softly and steadily as all his previous movements had been. “You can’t escape.  S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters is an airship – we’re thousands of miles above ground, and even if you managed to breach the titanium frame of the ship, there’s no way you could –” He paused suddenly, the simple truth seeming to dawn on him in a flash.  His mouth opened and he mouthed a silent _no_ as Remy’s bare back hit the wall of the cell and began to charge it.  Rogue waited, baited breath, watching the anguished conflict begin to fill Worthington’s face, feeling the concentration coming off Remy like a physical thing as he tried to hold onto both charges without detonating one or the other at once.

            “Step dis way, Agent,” he almost cooed to Worthington. “Give de lady a kiss.”

            Sweat was beading on the blond man’s forehead; he stood stock still where he was, bathed in the harsh pink glow of the wall that was charging, slowly and surely, before him.

            “I can’t let you do this,” he growled, but Remy laughed, giving no hint of what Rogue could feel from him – that it was almost an inhuman effort to do this, to keep the charges going; and suddenly she realised the very real danger she was in…

            “C’mon, _homme._   Let’s play dis out.  If’n we don’, she dies, you die, I die; and so does ev’ryone else in dis tin can.  Play by _my_ rules an’ virtually ev’ryone walks away happy.  Y’know it makes sense, Agent.  So kiss her.  Do it now.”

            She saw his resolve go.  Saw it give way, inch by inch, feature by feature, on his face.  He took a step forward, then another.  He moved until he was right there in front of her, and she closed her eyes, trying to hold tight onto herself, hold tight onto her own personality as she felt his lips brush against her own and –

            _KA-BOOM!_

            The next thing she knew she was on her knees next to Worthington’s crumpled form, amid the screeching and the crashing and the careening; a sudden rush of air and twisted metal, dust and debris whipping her and –

            Pain searing through her body, centering into her back, her spine, her shoulder blades and –

            The wings tearing through her veins and her flesh, her voice screaming as they erupted from her in a volcano of bloody white feathers, the pain too much to bear, too much to bear, too much to–

            But hands were on her arms, pulling her up, holding her against his body whilst the skeleton of the ship lurched and creaked all around them; the wind screeched through their ears and tore at their hair and she looked up into those familiar burning eyes in the darkness and remembered, remembered…

            “Fly!” was the one word he hollered above the maelstrom, and she threw her arms round him because she knew no other way how… She spread her wings and looked up to a glossy white, lustrous moon… She stepped off into the wind and the clouds and the inky blackness, and…  She flew.

            She flew.

-oOo-

            A moment later, it seemed, she opened her eyes to the first grey light of dawn.

            She was lying flat on her stomach, in the dirt, surrounded by fallen leaves, by feathers, scrub and brush.  Her shoulder blades were searing painfully, her torn skin felt cool and moist.  She smelled of earth, of blood.  For a moment she closed her eyes, and then, when she opened them again – water, splashing against the wounds on her back, a wet cloth washing the blood away gently.  She was naked from the waist up and he – he was right there beside her.

            It was enough to jerk her into wakefulness, enough for her to start and croak: “ _Don’t touch me_!” But when the pain took her again she felt his palm on her back, warm through a damp rag, holding her in place.

            “Shh, chere, lemme just finish up here.  No need to worry, I got m’self covered.  You been in an’ out of consciousness for a while.  Just been tryin’ to patch you up…”

            His voice was calm, soothing, and she settled back into the bed of feathers beneath her and remembered _the wind on her face as she soared through the clouds, not even able to see where she was going, and the imprint fading, shedded feathers leaving a glimmering white trail behind her and suddenly plummeting, tumbling, doing her best to shield him, to keep him safe… Landfall…_   How long ago was that…?

            Above her, he’d finished; she remained still as she heard him stand, and the next moment he’d thrown her S.H.I.E.L.D. jacket down beside her.

            “If y’need my help, just call,” he told her softly. “I won’t be far.”

            She heard his footsteps in the leaves, further and further away; when she felt the safety of silence she sat up slowly, shakily, feeling the bones in her shoulder blades as if they were jello; she pulled on the bloodsoaked jacket inch by painstaking inch, pain jarring her every movement.

            Button by button she sealed away her toxic flesh, wondering that he’d put himself in danger of another absorption by cleaning her wounds.  Wondering that he’d stayed.

 

            He’d stayed.

-oOo-

            He was standing under a nearby tree, leaning against the bark and smoking a battered cigarette; she had no idea where it had come from.  He didn’t look up when she approached him on unsteady feet, feeling her way around the trunk for support.  She stopped when she was about a foot from him, feeling uncertain how to thank him, wondering if he would accept any thanks at all.

            “You stayed,” she began quietly, awkwardly. “Thanks.”

            He didn’t look at her.  He was contemplating something in his hands and when she looked she saw he was holding one of her feathers, long and white and bloodied.

            “I owed you one, chere,” he answered nonchalantly. “You helped me get out o’ dat fix up there.  You put your own life at risk.  Only fair I repaid my debt.”

            So was that how it was?  She bit her lip and stared at the ground, thinking that it was probably better if it was.  They both knew the unspoken.  That wherever they were, S.H.I.E.L.D. could not be far behind.  They would have to move, and soon.

            “You should go,” she murmured softly.  He said nothing for a long moment and when she raised her eyes she saw him still staring at the feather in his hands.

            “ _Oui_ ,” he spoke at last. “I’m a criminal.  You’re a law enforcer.” He pushed himself away from the tree and turned to her, a bitter smile on his face. “Ain’t a whole lotta good can come o’ dat.”

            “Right,” she whispered.  Nevertheless she could feel the thing between them thick and impenetrable and _real_ ; a thing she’d stolen and couldn’t give back.  She glanced at her fingers, splayed out upon the bark of the tree, encased in cold, unyielding leather.  Anything could’ve worked between them but for _that_.

            The silence between them lingered for a long moment, making them wary, uncertain.  He moved first; when she dared to look up into his eyes it was to find them already on her own, just as always.

            “You stole from me, chere,” he said, no trace of a smile on his lips. “But you trusted me and for dat I owe you more than anyt’ing.  I’m a t’ief, I steal.  But trust, I give back, chere.  Always.  T’ink of me a little, if you ever get lonely.”

            He stepped closer, raising the feather to her mouth, kissing her through the soft, white down.  She closed her eyes, feeling the warm, light pressure of his lips, wishing, wishing… that there was nothing between them but flesh.  But his kiss was not alien.  It was as familiar to her as night and day; as the tides.  And for a moment, she thought, she hoped… he felt it too.

            He pulled away, too soon.  She opened her eyes and saw his own flickering, glowing in the cold, grey light.  He stood back a step, then another.  A smile touched his face, as if nothing had changed between them.  With one hand he pressed the feather to his lips and kissed it – as if for good luck – before tucking it into his waistband.

            “G’bye, chere,” was all he said.

            “’Bye,” she whispered.

            He swallowed, once.  Nodded.  Then, without another word, he turned and sprinted off  into the dimness without another backward glance.

 

            And that was the last time she saw him, before the world was unmade once more.

-oOo-

_Next: A treat for House of Cards fans..._


	8. The Other Side of Masks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remy plays knight in shining armour to Rogue's damsel in distress, but it isn't always a role he performs to perfection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is set in same timeline as House of Cards, which is (very loosely) based on the Days of Future Past timeline. If you haven't read House of Cards you might find this tale confusing, so be warned. In fact my original draft of Thread number 8 was a condensed version of chapters 19 and 20 of HoC, which only later grew into the 26-chapter monster it eventually became.  
> When I started re-writing this, I was tempted to do a HoC sequel, but decided not to. (Sorry). Instead this tale covers the chapters 'Revelations' and 'Masks' from HoC, but is written entirely from Gambit's point of view. For this reason the dialogue in a couple of the scenes is repeated but I've tried to minimise this as much as possible. Oh, and please note, this tale is rated for language.
> 
> Enjoy.

            A second.  That was all it had taken.

            A second to unmake their world, a world that had taken them four years and a safe house to create.

 

            It’d been eighteen months since he’d last been with Rogue, when they’d both ended up ‘accidentally’ working the same mission together in the city.  The only time they ever had the good fortune to cross paths these days was due to business – fun was never on anyone’s agenda anymore, though he managed to get his kicks whenever he could afford to.  Technically it shouldn’t have bothered him if he suspected she was getting some of her own, which he did.  The suspicion still hadn’t prepared him for the moment when he’d stepped inside the Brotherhood headquarters and realised just who and what she was working for, what the years of hardship and oppression had forced her to become.  Rogue, an underground espionage whore.

            That was the moment when their world, their house of cards, had come tumbling down.

            And that was why, as he stood there now in the Brotherhood’s kitchen, staring out the grimy, rain-streaked window at his glowering reflection, he was feeling more than just a little pissed.

            “I don’t trust you, LeBeau,” the woman behind him said in a voice as frost-bitten as an icy winter’s day. 

            Remy said nothing.  _So fucking what?_   Story of his goddamned life.  It was bad enough he had to be standing here, in a place he didn’t belong, looking at his reflection when it was the last thing on earth he really wanted to look at.

            “Den why'm I here, Raven?” he asked, expecting no answer.

            She stood there silent with her white arms crossed and her grey eyes dissecting him.  Porcelain skin and jet black hair.  Snow White, hard and cold and ruthless.  Her mouth twisted into a wry grimace and she said, with just a hint of grudging helplessness: “Because I haven't got a choice.”

            He stared at her and placed the cigarette between his lips, sucked slowly.  He had to wonder why Mystique wanted to form a partnership with his boss so badly – enough to strike a deal with Sinister of all people.  What was so important to Mystique that she didn’t have a choice anymore, that she'd been cornered into making this pact with the devil?

            “But I don’t trust you,” she added again, her lips pressed hard and firm.  He exhaled smoke and said softly: “You wise, chere.  I wouldn’t trust me neither.”

-oOo-

            Rachel Summers.  That was who it all boiled down to.

            Daughter of the famous Scott Summers and Jean Grey, time twister now turned mutant-killing Hound.  To Essex she was the pinnacle of evolution, a subject he would have sold his soul to the devil for, if he hadn’t already sold it long ago.  Remy had no idea what she was to the Brotherhood, but they knew where she was kept, and since Essex knew how to break the Hound programming on her, the deal between the two had been an unholy marriage of convenience.  Remy’s mission was simple.  Help the Brotherhood free Rachel, and once they’d outlived their usefulness, kill them.

            So he’d gone to the Brotherhood Headquarters for a briefing, to case out the enemy, and do a little bit of recon.  It was only in the split second before opening that briefing room door that he’d known _she_ was going to be there.  Prophecy had little to do with it; he’d known she was there because of something else.

            Her scent – vanilla and orange and shades of lavender.

            It was the fragrance he smelled on the bedsheets back in the safe house, that coloured the pillow with memories of her hair, that haunted his nights spent reconstructing the texture of her skin and the shape of her body and the taste of her kisses.

            That was how he'd known.

            He hadn't bothered looking for her in months now, thinking she'd gone, thinking she didn’t want to be found.  He'd learned to live with that.  But when he'd opened that door and seen her, just the back of her head, waves of cinnamon-coloured hair tumbling down over her shoulders, the smooth arc of her leg bridging the gap between her and the table… the ache he'd been repelling for all those months came back like a punch in the gut.  All the waiting, all the searching… and then all the purging he'd had to do, all those other beds he'd climbed into, trying to get her out of his system…  And she'd been here all the time, just here.  With the Brotherhood.

            She’d stared at him with cold, hard eyes, accusation and betrayal in her glance.  _Yes,_ he’d wanted to say to her.   _I work for Essex.  I always have.  I betrayed you before we even met, chere.  It was what I came to you to do._

            For years they’d been two of the same species of mad creature, working the same side of the fence but from totally different angles.  Lies and betrayal were with them every single day of their lives, yet he’d never expected them from her, not even if he’d deserved nothing less.  He’d hidden his truth from her, just as she’d hidden hers.  It was a truth he’d half-guessed long ago – the truth that she wasn’t his.  It wasn’t even as simple as her belonging to another.  No.  She was Mystique’s whore, the Brotherhood’s whore, the mutant cause’s whore.

            Knowing her betrayal was all he deserved hadn't stopped the starburst of all-encompassing and violent anger he'd felt when he finally knew the truth.

            Despite Sinister's orders, he'd had no intention of killing any one of the people in that room.

            But at that moment he would've made an exception for Mystique.  Mystique, who’d taught Rogue how to control her powers, who’d sold her on to the ‘mutant cause’.

            He would've liked to kill her, nice and slow.

           

            He had no idea why he was holding back now, when he was so close to her, when he was alone with her in the kitchen and he could've flipped the knife from his thigh and thrown it at her and stuck the goddamn thing in her throat before she even got a chance to scream.

            His anger was no longer a bubbling crescendo, making his head thunder and the blood jangle in his veins.  His anger was tight and focused and bitter, and in truth he wanted to turn a little of it in on himself.  Maybe that was why he didn’t off the bitch right here, right now, right where she stood.

            “For your information,” he spoke, turning back to the window and taking another drag, “I don’t trust you neither.”

            “Good,” she shot back evenly. “Then at least we know where we stand.”

            Again, he watched his reflection in the glass with that odd sense of déjà vu.  His eyes, staring back at him into infinity, dark and glowing.  In the background Mystique pushed herself away from the doorjamb and walked over to stand beside him.

            “Let's just get one thing straight, LeBeau,” she spoke quietly, almost conversationally, her eyes glinting dangerously. “Any wrong move you make in the next 48 hours you will forfeit with your life.  But,” and this time she turned to him fully, her voice openly dripping with menace and loathing, “if you so much as touch my daughter with those filthy Cajun paws of yours, I will tear you limb from limb personally, with my own two hands.  Understand?”

            He turned to face her, calm as he did not feel, eyes burning, bleeding liquid fire.      His fingers were itching for that knife.  Rage was seeping from his pores.  He wanted to ask what the fuck was wrong with her that she'd got to the point where she was willing to pimp her own daughter.  But asking that would've blown his cover.  And Rogue's, for that matter.

            “If dere's one t'ing you can trust me on, Mystique,” he told her, his voice low, charged, “it's dat no one’s gonna so much as lift a finger against your daughter.  Not now, and definitely not on my watch.”

-oOo-

            The night had cast a dark and impenetrable cloak about the godforsaken city, a city where mutants were scum unless they were Hounds, where Sentinels were soldiers and death was in just about every corner you cared to look.

            Remy LeBeau strode out under stars, slamming the back door to the Brotherhood headquarters and coming to an abrupt stop on the cold and dusty forecourt.

            He was shaking, shaking so badly he felt as if he were going to fall to pieces.  With one hand he lit up a cigarette whilst the other absently fingered the knife at his thigh.  A siren was wailing in the distance and it made the itch in him even more urgent – he wanted to take something down, blow it to bits, rip it to shreds, destroy it completely and leave nothing behind but a pile of ash.  He thought of Mystique standing beside him, calm, dispassionate.  Saying: “I don’t trust you, LeBeau.”

            His fingers stung.  When he raised the cigarette to his lips he could feel the charge in them, boiling over from his nerve-endings and into the Rizla paper.  It took a conscious effort of will to pull it all back inside him.  _Not now, LeBeau, bide your time, wait… …_

            He paused, his ears pricking slightly at the familiar _tap, tap, tap_ of a mahogany cane, the tread of a light, frail footstep.  He drew on his cigarette and frowned.

            “Y’can save it, Irene,” he ground out from between gritted teeth. “I ain’t in de mood.”

            He turned when she didn’t speak, his eyes resting on the little old woman in the prim little suit with the rose-tinted glasses, chin tilted, as if to regard him with disarming and child-like appraisal.

            “I don’t suppose you are,” was all she said.  Her tone was neutral, no veiled sarcasm, and it riled him even more.  She had no right to be calm, no right to be standing there and talking to him with her self-righteous bull crap.  He was _so_ ready for what he had to do tomorrow, _so_ ready to make somebody pay.  She could’ve see it in his face, even if she hadn’t been able to see it in his future.

            “You have every right to be angry,” she told him in a calm, controlled tone.

            “Yes.” He nodded tersely. “I do.”

            They both knew it.  That if he killed anyone it would be because of his righteous fucking anger and to protect _her._   He had no claims on Rogue except that he’d slept with her a few times, and he would’ve liked to sleep with her a whole lot more, even if he’d known she was running with the Brotherhood, even if he’d known they were pimping her out for the sake of the mission, for the sake of the ‘mutant cause’…  God, it made him sick.  It made him sick to know that he hadn’t been able to do anything to stop it.

            And blind though Irene was, even if she had known nothing about him, she could feel it in him now.  She could feel the hate and the anguish coming off him in waves.

            “Have you told Rogue?” she asked him quietly. “What lies in your heart?”

            He snorted, shaking his head, looking away. “You’re mistakin’ me for someone who has one,” he muttered.

            “Oh, but I think you _do_ have one,” she retorted softly, “One that is so full that sometimes you fear it could kill you.  All the better to deny that it even exists at all.” Again, she paused; he felt the breath in his lungs press painfully against the wall of his chest and he let it out in a sudden exhalation that gave him away more than words could. But she brushed the silent admission aside as if it meant very little.

            “Rogue is going to make a very big sacrifice, you know,” she told him in a low voice.

            He said nothing a moment, stared up at the moon and the clouds and the wisps of smoke curling steadily from the cigarette between his fingers.

            “More sacrifices?” he murmured. “Ain’t dat girl sacrificed enough?”

            Again, she ignored him.

            “The greater question is – what are you going to do to stop her?”

            The words lingered between them for a few moments; when he made no reply she turned, walking back to the house with such apparent insouciance that he was incensed.

            “ _You_ killed him,” he blurted out in an angry rush just as she got to the door, and she stopped dead in her tracks, ears pricked, surprised.  A thrill of triumph that he’d _finally got to her_ coursed through him and he urged on excitedly: “When Essex asked me to take on dis assignment for you, I did my homework.  And y’know what I found out?  De Brotherhood killed Senator Kelly.  You started all _dis_ , Destiny.  _You_.  Why? [1]”

            She was still for a long moment, her back to him, her hand on the door handle.  And when she looked back over her shoulder at him, there was no regret in her.  No remorse at all.

            “Why?” she echoed softly, her voice cold and clinical and completely matter of fact. “Why, what else but for the end?  I did it for you, Remy, and for her.  For all of us.  For _everything_.”

            The words had taken all her strength to repeat.  Suddenly her shoulders slumped, and her hand trembled on the door handle as if she were uncertain despite herself.

            He’d walked away from Rogue like that once, a long time ago.

            Now he knew how it felt, when Destiny opened that door and walked away without once looking back.         

-oOo-

            The plan was a simple one.

            Get Rogue into the Ritz, have her make contact with the Head of Hound Security, and steal his keycard to the Hound compounds.

            Then both Sinister and the Brotherhood would be free to access the Hound Pens and claim their ultimate prize - Rachel Summers.  Once the Brotherhood had revealed the location of the Hounds, Gambit’s orders were to dispose of them.

            Gambit had no intention of killing, even if he was sorely tempted to twist a knife into Mystique's stone cold heart.  His priorities lay elsewhere, especially now that the presence of Rogue had cropped up to complicate matters.

            He needed to plan the mission ahead, so he left the Brotherhood in their crumbling headquarters and sped all the way back to the safe house, a plan formulating in his mind whilst he simultaneously weighed up the evening's events.  He knew Rogue was angry with him.  Probably about as angry as he was with her for selling herself to Mystique's screwed up cause.  He told himself sternly that this was exactly why he'd always kept her at arm's length.  Sharing physical intimacy didn’t bring any of the strings that were attached to other kinds of intimacy.  Knowing what he knew about her now…it caused problems.  Huge problems.  Technical, practical.  Emotional.  He had to work with that now.  So would she.  It was the least of his worries.

            Remy entered the apartment, crossed the small room, threw open the window and pondered. 

            _Anton Simmons_ , he thought.

 

            Every mission had its variables, and he always made it his job to research them as thoroughly as he could beforehand.  Perhaps the lynchpin of this particular assignment was Anton Simmons.  The Director of Hound Security.  The man who could gain both him and the Brotherhood access to Rachel Summers.

            The man Rogue had to seduce to get information from.

            Remy grabbed his cell and dialled the number he most often dialled when he was doing his research.  One ring and it was answered.

            “Yo, Rems.”

            He didn’t have time for pleasantries.  Not now, not with this one thing on his mind.

            “Didja get de intel for me?” he asked instead.

            “Hey, do I ever disappoint you, man?  'Course I did.”

            “So what's de deal wit' dis Simmons guy then?”

            “Hmmm.” There was the sound of wires humming, the click of a mouse, the _clack_ , _clack, clack_ of typing. “Anton Simmons, Head of Hound Security,” the cheap and cheerful voice finally said, sounding less cheap and cheerful than it usually did. “Been in with the new regime since day one.  Rose through the ranks pretty quick.  Got the Head of Hound Security job within two years.  Trask Technologies' star employee.”

            Remy mulled over this, shrugged the trenchcoat off and threw it over the back of the armchair.

            “Got any dirt on him?”

            “Nothin' substantial, I'm 'fraid.  Seems he was linked tenuously to an incident where some homeless mutant got beat up pretty bad.  Guy survived but the case was thrown out of court.  Insufficient evidence, but seems pretty cut and dried that Trask Technologies bought both the judge and jury.  This was before Simmons hit the big time though.  Clean record since then.”

           Not surprising.  Remy fumbled in his pockets for a cigarette and lighter, found them and lit up with one deft movement.

            “Guy married?”

            “Nope - he's a widower,” came the amused reply. “And this is where is gets int'restin'.  You remember those Magneto riots that sparked off the original anti-mutant policies eight years ago?”

            Remy could already see where this was leading, could already see the bigger picture forming.  He rubbed the stubble on his cheek feeling a sudden weariness.

            “Yup.  Go on.”

            “Simmons' wife and daughter were out shopping in the city that day.  Got caught in the crossfire between Magneto's Acolytes and the military.  Afterwards, Simmons signed up with Trask Technologies.  Got into some serious chop-suey too, if y' know what I mean.  Black belt in Aikido, Jujitsu and Kempo… Not to mention he spends half his life on the firing range…”

            Remy had heard enough.  He stubbed out his cigarette on a nearby ashtray.

            “Any significant other?” he interrupted quickly.

            “Hmmm.  Thought you might be askin' 'bout that.  Gotta tell you, this Simmons is the kinda guy that gets off on his work, not on the ‘fairer’ sex.  But,” the voice added with a pride it was unable to hide, “he has been known to play away from home now and then.  _And_ I managed to find out he's been screwin' his secretary.  Now this ain't your usual wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am kinda thang, know what I'm sayin'?  Not since he's been screwin' her the past five years at least.  That answer your question?”

            “Very much so,” Remy grimaced. “T'anks, mon ami.”

            He ended the call, threw the phone onto the nightstand and slumped onto the mattress.  He rubbed his face.  Lord he was tired.  And this whole job was bad news…too complicated… too dangerous.  He rolled onto his side.  A year and a half ago she would've been right there.  He would've pressed his face against her skin, kissed the dimple in her shoulder blade, slipped his arm around her waist, felt her fingers slide between his own…breathed in the scent of her hair.

            Rogue, his lonely butterfly.

            _Gotcha back covered, chere…_

            And then he slept.

-oOo-

            _Twilight falls, followed by darkness.  There are no shadows.  Only the silhouette of the mansion, lights in the windows casting pillars of tawny light across the lawn._

_He waits by lake and stares at his reflection, his hands in his pockets, his features disrupted by a feather floating casually across the water.  Is this a memory, or a dream? It must be real, because he remembers this, a night six years ago, before the military had even attacked the X-Men… …_

_“Ah’m here,” she says._

_He turns and sees her there, under the monolithic cedar tree.  She is self-consciously beautiful in a virginal white dress, a shy, expectant, romantic smile on her face, like this is the first time she’s been on a rendezvous with a guy since she was thirteen.  Hell, it probably is.  Her skin shimmers like marble in the moonlight, untouched and untouchable._

_He doesn’t say anything.  He goes to her.  She’s wearing the pendant he once gave her; he can see it, the silver butterfly, glimmering against her milkmaid skin.  He closes the gap between them, places his hand over the butterfly at her breast, at her heart.  There is no absorption.  He touches her skin and all he can feel is softness and warmth and her heartbeat._

_“How…?” he begins, but stops when he doesn’t know what to say._

_“Ah think Ah have a choice to make,” she tells him softly._

_And when she says the words, he sees, he understands.  This is a dream…_

_He looks at his hand on her flesh, his palm closing over the pendant he had made hers._

_“Irene says you’re gonna make a sacrifice…” he whispers.  She doesn’t say a word, and his eyes meet hers again, seeing…trust there.  Trust despite all the betrayal._

_This is a dream…_

_“What do I do, Rogue?” he asks her when she doesn’t speak._

_She smiles._

_“Follow my lead.”_

_He feels it then.  Something brushing against his enclosed palm – paper-thin wings caressing him with a feather-light touch.  Surprised, he pulls back his hand, and now he sees that the butterfly pendant is real, blue and green wings luminous in the silvery moonlight, opening, closing, opening, closing.  Without warning it flitters up into the sky and he takes a step backward, he watches it.  There are clouds in the sky.  Clouds with silver linings.  The butterfly disappears inside them, out of sight._

_And when he looks back, she’s gone._  

-oOo-

            He woke later on his back, to sunshine.

            He lay there a moment, thinking.  He’d dreamed it again.  The half-memory, the texture of her skin; the butterfly pendant he’d once given her, becoming real, disappearing behind silver, moonlit clouds… …

            He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, rubbed his eyes, got up, washed.  Checked his cell for messages.  Nothing.  He lit up a cigarette because he needed it badly, walked to the window and looked out.  Above the same old quadrant of fading stone and concrete, clouds were chasing one another across skies the colour of lilac.

            And then footsteps on the corridor outside, slapping the floor with a staccato _clap, clap, clap_ , closer and closer until they stopped outside the door.  _Click._ Door opening.  _Slam_. Closing shut.  _Thud_.  Pack on the floor.  Pause.  He said nothing.  He waited for her.

            “Place seems familiar,” was all the greeting he got.  Truth be told, it was better than the slap in the face he'd been expecting.

            “Ain't used it since we were last here,” he replied quietly.  She was angry, and she had a right to be.  She didn’t have a right to his personal life, but she had a right to be mad at him for being Sinister's spy from the very start, from the very first moment she'd met him.

            “Is that right?” she murmured, and her tone was cold.

            He shrugged.

            “Woulda come here and cleaned up if I'd got some leisure time, but you know Sinny… he's de regular slave driver, don't get much vacation workin' wit' him…”

            There was no reply.  He turned, watching her cross the room, dump her bag in her usual, little corner.  Her body was taut inside the tight, leather bodysuit, the planes of her face almost rigidly gaunt, her hair caught back into an angry, unruly ponytail.  She was crackling with pent-up rage.  He could feel it crawling along his skin, a fissure burgeoning with the inhuman pressure it took her to keep her sense of frustration and betrayal in check.  He wanted to take that face between his hands.  Caress the sharp angles of her cheekbones with his thumbs, work the tension out of her body, unfold her, smooth her out lovingly.  He wanted to put her back together again.  Repair her innocence.

            He wanted to kill Mystique.

            He could do neither.

            “Why so angry, chere?” he asked quietly instead, when she turned to him, waiting for an explanation he couldn’t give. “Don’t recall you bein’ so prickly last time we met… Or the time before that neither…”

            “Ah didn't know you were workin' with Sinister back then,” she spat, her green eyes flashing pale and cold with disgust.  Revulsion.  Hatred.  It was that which took him off guard.  Her anger he could deal with.  But disdain… abhorrence… She had no right.  She had no right after what _she_ had done…

            “Oh.” He tried cool detachment with an effort. “And if you'd known, dat would've made a difference?”

            “ _Yes_ ,” she hissed, with such conviction, with such blind certainty that he felt a sudden surge of rage and he couldn’t help himself asking: “Would it, really?”

            “Why d'yah think Ah never asked, why Ah never wanted to know?!”

            “For de same reason I never asked you who _you_ were workin' for.  B'cause dat was business and what we had was -”

            “ _Pleasure_.  Yeah, Ah got it.” She whirled away from him and began to rummage pointlessly inside her bags.  He knew it was a cover, something for her to do other than gouge his eyes out, or slam her fist into his face… or have to look into his eyes and show them the pain in her own.  He watched her, watched the helpless rage building inside of her, her body drawn tight as a bowstring… And something went out of him.  She was so fragile, so vulnerable, like the butterfly in his dream… And he had no idea how it must've felt for her to expose herself to other men.  To give all that beautiful flesh over to them willingly, when he knew all she'd wanted was to fold in upon herself and hide.  He wanted to reach out to her.  He wanted to try again.  He had no idea how.

            So he told her the truth.  That he'd never _had_ to work for Sinister, that there had been nothing tying him to Essex, only the fact that he owed Essex his life, a life of bondage, a life of slavery - only to become a slave of a different kind.  He knew it.  He made no excuses for that.  But her sense of righteousness, her sense of moral indignation riled him, because she wasn’t an innocent anymore.  She was just like him.

            “I don't pretend t' be a good person, Rogue,” he told her softly. “Why do you?”

            She turned on him then, so wild and fierce and beautiful that he would’ve wept.

            “Because Ah didn't sell out, Remy!” she seethed. “Because Ah don't sell innocent souls!”

            He thought of her as she had been, under the cedar tree so long ago.  It was with a sad sense of irony that he could not help but ask her: “Then why've you sold your own soul, p'tit?”

            It was if the words had sent her plummeting to the ground.  She choked; what colour was left in her face seeped out; the fire in her eyes burnt themselves out in a flash.

            “You don't know…” she stammered in a voice he barely recognised. “You don't know what it's like…”

            “ _Au contraire,_ I know exactly what it's like,” he returned quietly. “Dat's why you and me do what we do.  And if you've got a beef wit' Sinister, I can tell you I got one helluva beef wit' Mystique.  How long has she been askin' you t'do it, huh?  Turn tricks just for de sake of de mission?”

            She was steadying herself against the old dresser, eyes swimming, jaw clenched, knuckles white against faded and peeling mahogany.

            “It ain't like that,” she half-whispered to the floor. “Ah don’t _have_ t' do it… It's just that sometimes Ah don’t have a choice… So many of the statics have wised up t' mutant tricks… They come prepared, they neutralise our powers… Sometimes Ah can't absorb information from them… Ah don't have the heart for torture or killin'… Ah haveta find other ways…”

            Remy felt it; anger twisting inside him again, right in his gut.  To see her there, floundering for excuses for the thing she had become, the thing he'd been trying to _protect_ her from becoming for so long… It was almost more than he could bear.

            “And Mystique approved of dat, did she?” he seethed, unable to contain the fury which was now seeping dangerously into his voice. “Did she train you how to use those 'subtle charms' of yours, Rogue?  'Cos I know it's de kind of thing she ain't above doin' either!”

            “No,” she replied quietly, the shame in her voice only thinly disguised. “It wasn't her, not at first.  It was me - it was _my_ decision. Not _hers_.  Ah wasn't forced t' do a thing.  Besides…desperate times calls for desperate measures.”

            “Don’ give me none o’ dat bullshit,” he ground out in sudden frustration. Why, _why_ was she still making excuses for that bitch Raven? “So Mystique taught you t’ control your powers an’ you feel you owe her one.  But dat don’t mean you gotta whore yourself for her!”

            Even as he said it he knew it'd been a mistake, but he couldn’t take it back.  _Whore._   At the word she flared up again, pale cheeks flushing, eyes wild.

            “What do _you_ care?!  Ah was only ever just a whore t' you anyway!  And you know what, Remy?  Ah accepted it!  Ah accepted all the shit you threw at me, and still you have the nerve to preach at me when Ah don't belong t' you and Ah never did!  Or is it the fact that you ain't the only man who fucks me that bothers you?!”

            A pause, a challenge; her gaze met his, taking the breath out of him, making the pit of his stomach burn…  _Yes_.  _Hell yes_ , it bothered him, it _killed_ him that others had touched her skin, had kissed her mouth and sunk their flesh into her own, and it killed him even more to know that she must've closed herself tight against every moment of it, squeezed herself shut and wished for it to be over, screamed and screamed inside for an end …for _him_ …

            “Rogue --” he began, but she was too incensed to listen, even if he had known what he was going to say.

            “ _No_!” she cried, her voice slicing through him to the bone. “No more!  Ah'm sick of this, Remy - all of it!  Comin' here only once a year and bein' with you like it means somethin' more… Even if we wanted it to, it couldn't be, we both know it!  And Ah can't deal with that anymore, Ah just - Ah _can't_.”

            Stark admission.  Even she seemed to realise it, just how strong and unbreakable this thing between them had become.  It stunned them both into a long silence.  She stood a moment as if waiting for him to acknowledge it.  But he couldn’t.  And she wouldn’t wait for him any longer.  She’d waited eight years and he half suspected that she could’ve forgiven him his involvement with Essex if only he’d opened his arms to her and let her in.

            As it was she’d waited enough; he watched her turn on her heel, pick up her bag and go to the door with a sudden desperation welling inside him.

            “Where you goin'?” he barked, angry at her, angry at himself, angry that they'd both allowed themselves to do what they weren't supposed to and get so goddamn _hung up_ on each other.

            “Away,” she shot back breathlessly. “Ah don’t need yah t' do this mission.  Ah can do it myself.  And if that means that Essex doesn't get Rachel's DNA, or whatever else he _really_ wants, then so much the better!”

            With a jerk of her arm she'd opened the door; with another, she'd slammed it shut behind her, the room echoing with her exit, a dread finality.

            He swore a few choice oaths and ran a hand through his hair.  _Too much, LeBeau.  Too fuckin' much.  Turn away now, forget her.  End dis.  End being dis person she's made you become._

            He turned a full 360 degrees in the middle of the room, looked up at the ceiling and swore again.  She was his habit, the one he couldn’t kick.  She could be as tainted as fucking sin itself and he still wouldn’t stop dreaming about her, wanting her, needing her in his life.

            Goddammit.  _Goddammit_.  Like hell she was going to do this all by herself.  Like hell she didn’t need him.  Like hell he was going to let Simmons - or anyone else ever again for that matter - touch her.

            He picked up his trenchcoat, threw it on, and stormed out of the room before logic could get a hold on him once more.

-oOo-

            Okay, so he was impressed.

            Forge's suppressor was tiny, smaller than the size of a pea and yet here he was, standing in the shadows of the Ritz, well within the building's ambient security field.  Ten minutes ago an unfortunate and misguided mutant had tried to enter, tripped the alarms, and promptly been arrested.  Gambit had watched all of this from his vantage-point in the darkness and grimaced to himself.  He knew what was coming to the unfortunate mutant.  If his powers didn’t make him useful to Ahab and the Hounds, he'd be sent off to a concentration camp.  If he wasn’t roughed up a little bit beforehand, or tortured, or even killed, he'd be lucky in the extreme.  Nevertheless, Remy had no sympathy for amateurs.  When a job was done, he liked to see it done properly.  Inefficiency set his teeth on edge.  Carelessness made his jaw tic.  And Rogue, he knew, was angry.  Bitter.  Sick.  Scared.  He knew she was as serious about the job as he was.  He knew she was focused on it.  He knew she'd try to keep her head on for the sake of it.

            He also knew she hated it with a passion.

            And that was a serious shortcoming.

            Lucky for her, he had her back covered.  Again.

            That was when the yellow taxicab pulled up in front of the Ritz - her first mistake.  And he knew it was her.  She was already making herself look conspicuous by getting a taxi ride to the venue.

            “You ain't thought dis through proper, chere,” he murmured to himself, squinting as he saw her exit the cab and slam the door shut behind her. “You angry, you ain't t'inkin' straight.  Could cost you, if you don’t have a proper cover story t' back you up.”

            The cab sped away, leaving her standing on the hotel steps, shivering.  His breath hitched, his eyes narrowed.  For the second time in his life, he saw her looking like a woman.  Pure, uncomplicated woman.  Charcoal eyes and cherry red lips, hair pulled back into an elegant chignon, a champagne gold silk gown, the neckline open all the way down to her navel, an expanse of creamy white skin filling the void between with sensuous, satiny curves.  She stood a moment on the steps, gathering herself, taking in her surroundings.  Floundering, uncertain.

            “You look beautiful, chere,” he reassured her in a whisper she couldn’t hear. “And you know it.  Even a man like Simmons not gonna help hisself from wantin' you…”

            He ached as he watched her shake herself and walk up the steps, only to be swallowed by the revolving doors.  Ached as he knew any man would ache when they saw her; ached with the memory of their lovemaking.  He slid back into the shadows, the fire in his gut burning a trail right down into the root of him.

            “Fuck, LeBeau, dis ain't de time…”

            He shook himself and slunk round the side of the building, silent as a cat, padding softly but quickly through the darkness, knowing she was inside now, knowing the ball was rolling, that the game had begun.  Adrenaline was already welling in him, the way it did every time he was on a job.  This was what he thrived on - the stealth, the silence, the shadows, the chemicals pumping through him, the rush he got with the risk.  Like nicotine in his veins.  Like the slow surge of his power, tingling through his nerves, his fingers, his brain.  Like sex.

            Like her and him in their little safe house once a year, and all the fireworks that came with it.

            He grinned despite himself.  No powers tonight.  He could deal with that.  He could also deal with how pissed off he knew she was going to be that he'd followed her, as long as he knew she was safe.

            He skirted a corner and found himself round the back of the building.  He searched for the maintenance entrance and found it.  Locked.  As expected.  Everything was running like clockwork.  He liked that.  Surprises were nice, but only in good measure.  He produced his skeleton keys and worked the lock with a practiced ease.  A minute later and he heard the _click_ that would open the door for him.  He was inside.

-oOo-

            Remy sat inside the ventilator shaft and brooded.

            Through the grating he had a perfect view of the ballroom, but he was only taking a half-hearted interest in what he was seeing because he was too busy worrying about the fact that he didn’t actually have much of a plan.

            _So damn what?  Ain’t de first time I been makin’ t’ings up as I go along…_

            No; what was worse was the fact that she was stealing his senses from him and making him reckless and foolish.  He thought about what Irene had told him the night before.  _Rogue is going to make a very big sacrifice._   Was _this_ it, the all-important sacrifice?  If so, he _needed_ to be here.  He hated the idea of fulfilling half-baked prophecies, but with her he couldn’t take any chances.  Every time he doubted it he would think of her standing under the cedar tree in a white dress with that romantic smile on her lips and it would do weird shit to his heart.  He couldn’t get back that image of her, but if he couldn’t get her back at all… …

            And then he figured it out.  Suddenly he could articulate this feeling, the feeling that had been haunting him ever since he’d known her, that had driven so many of his decisions, of his actions.

            _I don’t want you to die, chere.  I don’t want you to die._

            It was a strange realisation, one that nevertheless renewed his sense of purpose.  He held his breath and peered through the grating, feeling a surge of urgency take him…

            …And suddenly there was Simmons, standing on the fringes of the party, talking to what appeared to be one of his bodyguards.  He was a thin, gaunt man with a receding hairline, a flat mouth and dark, plaintive, watchful eyes.  Unassuming, nondescript even.  His frame lank and unimposing.  Remy watched him with a greedy, narrowed glance.  Saw the Head of Hound Security's vigilant gaze, taking in every movement around him.  Saw the deceptively weak stance punctuated by powerful gestures quite at odds with the rest of his appearance.  Remy saw what no one else saw.  The face Simmons wore was a mask.  A façade.  He was dangerous.

            Remy tore his gaze away, coasting the waves of people flooding the ballroom, seeking her out.  He caught the flash of her neck a few moments later, at the other side of the room.  She was waiting for her drink, elbows on the bar, fingers toying with a lock of brown hair that was really white.  He knew that lock, the way it always fell in her face.  The way it looked sweat-dampened and stuck to her cheek.  The young Italian bartender offered her her drink, running his eyes over her face, downward over the deep slash of her neckline, the smooth valley between her breasts.  She took her drink, letting the lock of hair bounce free and back into place.  She turned, ignoring the Italian's smile.  He stared at her hair a long while after, as she stood at the bar looking for Simmons, his eyes caressing her neck and her shoulders with a voluptuous intensity.

            “Dat's right, homme,” Remy murmured to himself darkly, “You look, but don’t de fuck you dare touch…”

            On the tail end of his sentence Rogue moved, crossing the room with a sudden purpose.  People parted in her wake, men stared.  She was too beautiful for this job.  People noticed her too much, they'd remember her.  Remy cursed again to no one in particular.  The hardest thing about this was having to watch her with this horrible need inside him, this horrible _ache_.  For a moment, he lost her in the crowds.  When she resurfaced again, she was on the other side of the room, talking to a group of young men and women.  She'd positioned herself in the sights of Simmons' small group.  And Simmons, he saw, was looking at her.  Looking at her with an undisguised interest, with rapacious, hungry eyes.  He cocked his head, said something to the bodyguard beside him.  Then he turned and put a hand on the shoulder of a woman in a pink dress suit who was standing to one side in the shadows.  He said a few more words to her, short, urgent.  The woman stared up at him, nodding as he spoke, never taking her eyes from his face.

            Remy jerked into alertness.  It was too far to lip-read, but the body language was clear.  The intimacy of these two - the familiar touch Simmons placed upon her shoulder, the unwavering gaze she turned on his face, the quick, seriousness of his words - _instructions_ … The two were lovers.

            _Simmons' secretary_ …

            Simmons had stopped speaking.  The woman gave one last nod, turned, and left the room, shooting a furtive look right at Rogue as she did so.

            Remy's cue unfolded.

            Without a backward glance, he slunk away into the darkness.

-oOo-

            The woman in the pink dress suit walked the plush, dimly-lit corridor, _thud, thud, thud_ , heels muffled by the rich burgundy carpet.  Remy waited for her as a hawk waits for its prey, his eyes taking in every agitated movement she made across the hallway.  The tightness of her jawline, her flat mouth, the crease in her brow.  The jerk of her stockinged legs in heels she didn’t wear often.  The clenching of her fists, arms that hung taut at her sides.  Body language.  He was a great reader.  He knew from the way she held herself that she was upset.

            The pinky glow of a nearby lamp brushed over her features, highlighting a face that was neither beautiful nor unpleasant; the undistinguished face of a woman in her mid to late thirties with high cheekbones, tired, heavy-lidded eyes and thin, wide lips, framed by a mass of mid-length wavy brown hair.  A woman whose life would normally never have intersected with his own.

            He didn’t want to hurt her.  He didn’t want to deceive her either, but he was probably going to end up doing one or the other, and it was for the greater good.  For Rogue's sake.  So there was no use regretting the job before it had even begun.

            She passed by his hiding place on a waft of heavy, overly-fussy perfume and he whipped out on that cue, grasping her from behind, pressing a hand against her mouth before the scream had time to form in her throat.  She struggled, futile as he knew Simmons would _not_ be when the time came for Rogue to face him.

            “Hush now, chere,” he breathed against her neck, her ear. “Believe it or not, I mean y' no harm.  Jus' wantin' some information.  Now you come wit' me quiet and no one has to get hurt.”

            He was putting out all the charm he possessed, garnishing every word, every movement, every breath with it, and she had stopped struggling; he could feel her heartbeat racing, her breath fluttering against his palm…  She was scared, she was confused, and already she was needing…

            “Good girl,” he whispered softly, trailing his breath down her neck. “Now let's walk.”

           

            They walked down a corridor, and then another, him all the while holding her close, keeping her mouth covered, focusing himself on the shape of her body, her curves, the pulse of her heartbeat, the quickness of her breath.  Letting his body move with hers, every movement subtle seduction.  He could taste her confusion.  Her heat.  The sweat on her brow.  The scent of fear, of adrenaline, of desire.

            “Stop,” he ordered at last, and she stopped without second guessing herself.  He grimaced slightly.  He had her.  Whether she knew it or not, he had her.

            They were standing by a door, one he'd unlocked earlier on.  A doorway that was for an old storage room for old and broken furniture, beds, wardrobes, dressers, lamps, chairs, coffee tables.  He pushed softly at the handle, opened it and slid inside, pulling her with him.  It was dark, but for the tawny sliver of light from the hallway.  He released her slowly - respectfully - and shut the door behind him, turning the lock one-handed.  She didn’t scream.  She didn’t struggle.  But he could hear her breathing, heavy, ragged, close beside him.  He turned to face her in the pitch black.  She couldn’t see him, but he could see her.  He could see everything in the room.  He could see her eyes, combing the darkness, see her breasts heaving underneath the prim, pink tweed jacket, see her hands feeling for the walls, feeling for him.  Her mouth open, terror welling in her, a scream forming in her throat –

            “It's all right, chere,” he informed her quietly, gently, inoffensively as he could. “I'm right here.  And I ain't gonna hurt you.”

            Her eyes flickered in his direction, dancing this way and that, her hands searching the darkness...

            “Who are you?” she demanded, but there was fear in her voice, a voice that he sensed was usually strong, confident.

            “No one dat matters,” he answered shortly. “Someone who needs your help.”

            “A mutant?” she asked him, her eyes becoming accustomed to the dark a little, because they were focusing on him, picking out his outline bit by bit, little by little.

            “Does it matter?” he questioned mildly, but she was backing away from him again, the fear in her surging like a wild thing as she breathed in a panic-stricken voice: “You _are_ a mutant, I can see your eyes…my _God_ , your eyes…  I'm going to scream… I'm going to scream, I swear it…”

            He bit back an expletive and stepped forward, grasped her hands by the wrists, placed them on his chest.

            “I'm right here, chere,” he ground back, his voice low, charged. “Not'ing t' be 'fraid of.  I'm not gonna hurt you.  I promise.”

            She paused; he dropped his grasp from her wrists, but she didn’t move her hands from his chest, didn’t push him away from her in revulsion.  And he felt it; the gasp rush through her lips unbidden, her eyes wide and timorous in the dark, her lips parting slowly as she whispered, trembling: “My God…” Another pause, another laboured breath, another whisper: “W-Who _are_ you…?”

            He stepped forward, but she didn’t step back, didn’t drop her hands.  In the darkness her eyes were searching for his face, searching for more than just his eyes… And he felt guilty.  He felt guilty for tricking her into this.

            “You're right, chere,” and suddenly he knew he wasn’t going to lie to her. “I'm a mutant.  And I need your help.  I need some information.”

            Her eyes pellucid in the darkness, and she shook her head once, saying: “Anton… He won't-”

            “Anton,” Remy murmured back, cutting her off gently, “he told you t' leave de party, didn't he.  He was lookin' at dat girl, de one wit' de brown hair and de green eyes.  He told you to leave, he gave you some excuse and you obeyed him, but you knew it was b'cause of de girl wit' de green eyes, you saw him lookin' at her, didn’t you…”

            She sucked in a sharp breath, her fingers flexing against his chest, trembling.

            “How do _you_ know…?”

            “I need you t' help me,” he said quickly, ignoring her statement, taking another step in towards her, where he could feel the indecision, the want, the heat emanating from her.  And suddenly there was doubt in her eyes, doubt and fear again as her eyes fixed onto his own.

            “Why should I?” she queried, her tone bold yet shaken …

            “B'cause I know how it feels,” he murmured back, taking another step, pouring all his charm into the wall of her body, pushing it against the cracks in her defences, feeling her buckle, yield, feeling her fingers curl into his shirt, to hold him back, to draw him near…

            “I know how it feels, t' be rejected by de one you love, chere,” he persisted, his voice a low, gravelly rumble in the darkness. “I know how much dat hurts.  Dis ain't de first time he's done it, is it.  He swears you're the one, tells you over and over he loves you and no one else, but it doesn’t stop him, does it.  It doesn’t stop him from lookin' at others, from wantin' t' be wit' dem.  And it kills you, chere.  Every day feels like a step closer to losin' him…”

            In the blackness her eyes were swimming, and suddenly the fingers at his chest were pulling at his shirt, no resistance, and the guilt in him flamed anew when her voice broke and she sobbed: “O-Oh God,” and began to weep.

            He couldn’t lose her now.  Couldn’t break the connection he'd been working so hard to forge between them.  He stepped forward again, bridged the final gap, pressed his body against hers, took her face between his palms and whispered urgently: “I know it hurts, chere.  I know it hurts so bad, but you can do somet'ing about it.  Hurt him de way he hurt you, chere.  Betray him like he's betrayed you.  He doesn’t even have to know…”

            And she was back, she was focusing on him again, his face so close, his breath on her lips…  She was with him… And her body trembling, melting into his…

            “W-who are you?” she asked again, weakly, no fear, no indignation, no demand, but acquiescence, wonder, desire.  And in that instant he knew he had her.

            He pushed her back into the wall and pressed his lips against hers, and she whimpered, opening her mouth, kissing him back, her fingers climbing his chest, grasping his shoulders, winding into his hair, and the flame that'd been burning inside him all day was suddenly leaping, twisting hot and greedy and lustful, and he needed it, he needed to wash away the pain of rejection as much as she did…

            He wanted to forget the love and the hate and the passion and the frustration; and most of all he wanted to forget _her_.

            So he closed his eyes.  Closed his eyes and tumbled down willingly into the sweet oblivion that was unthinking and mindless sensation.

-oOo-

            Half an hour later and he was running down the corridor, swearing breathlessly to himself and tucking his shirt back into his pants.

            “Merde, LeBeau… What de fuck were you t'inkin'?”

            He rounded a corner and began searching for the storage cupboard he'd heard Avalanche and Mystique discussing behind closed doors the day before.  His little excursion had already cost him precious minutes, and if Rogue was half as good as Raven seemed to think she was, then her and Simmons were well on their way to the penthouse suite.  Frustration was building inside him like a boulder rolling steadily downhill, frustration and guilt and anger and shame…

            “Shit shit shit, I _know_ it was meant to be round here…”

            He didn’t have time for this bullshit.  He needed to be up there in Simmons' room, ready and waiting for their arrival.  He needed to have her back covered.  He needed to be watching her every moment possible.  Instead he'd wasted more than fifteen minutes fucking Simmons' secretary senseless, for no other reason than to satisfy his raging libido and to hurt _her_.  A total fucking waste of time, considering the only important thing he'd needed was to get the Pen codes off her.

            “Damn you, Rogue…” he hissed to himself.  Of course it was all her fault.  All the bullshit she'd been throwing at him that morning, then turning up dressed in _that_ dress, reminding him just how much he wanted her, leaving him so goddamn horny he'd had to go to the lengths of screwing a total stranger… on the job no less…  when he was meant to be watching _her_ …

            He paused, rested his forehead against a nearby door and closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath.

            He'd screwed up.  Completely.  Letting his physical needs cloud his judgement.  Risking her with the tide.  And his body still ached.  Not with the throb of lust, of want, but with the raw emptiness of a want that couldn’t be sated.  With guilt, with shame.

            _If I've lost her 'cos o' dis…_

            The thought galvanised him.  He pushed himself away from the door and stared at it, suddenly realising he was staring at _the_ door.

            _Fuckin' finally…_

            He swung it open, and peered inside.  Found Rogue's pack lying in a dusty corner, waiting patiently for its owner.  He caught it up, slammed the door shut, and swung the bag onto his shoulders.

            Thirty-four minutes and counting.

-oOo-

            This was the kind of thing he lived for; hanging precariously on the brickwork ledge of one of the world's greatest hotels, muscles bunching and straining as he tried to pull himself up without losing his meagre foothold, eyes already seeking the next nook or cranny that would give him adequate purchase.

            He'd been at this for fifteen minutes now; it was nearly an hour since he'd left Rogue at the party to chase after Simmons' secretary, nearly forty minutes since he'd seduced her and twenty-five since he'd fucked his way to a lacklustre climax… and about twenty-four since he'd finally charmed those goddamn Pen codes out of her.  Straining, sweating, grunting, and not in a good way.  His body had been through way too much this evening.  Climbing to the penthouse suite of the Ritz was probably going to leave his muscles shot for days afterwards - if he lived that long.

            _No time to t'ink 'bout dat now, LeBeau._

            He grit his teeth and soldiered on.  He shouldn’t have been complaining really.  He'd got over the worst of it.  Another storey and he'd be there.  Just one more…

            Nevertheless he was struggling. Each movement he made upward was sending painful spasms through his arms and legs, and he knew he'd been pushing himself to his limits that night.  He'd forgotten how fucking stupid it was to go climbing a building this high, and without all the proper equipment.  He just hadn't had the time to rustle it up after he'd come up with this insane plan earlier on in the day… and besides, whenever he was on a knight-in-shining-armour mission, he tended not to think straight.

            _Damned fool, LeBeau…_

            He'd finally reached the balcony of Simmons' room.  He didn’t even allow himself the luxury of the usual sense of triumph.  With an inhuman burst of stamina he felt sure he no longer possessed, he hauled himself up onto the railings and swung gracefully over onto the balcony.  He shrugged off Rogue's pack, letting it fall to the floor.  The French windows were closed – locked, he had no doubt.  He bent down on one knee, peered round the edge of the glass.

            It was dark inside, and for a moment, he thought there was no one there.

            It took only a split second for his eyes to adjust, for him to see two figures in the doorway.  Simmons, leaning over Rogue, his body pressed against hers, their faint silhouettes outlined only by the lights of the city.  At first he thought they were kissing.  Simmons’ hand was caressing her throat, slow, sensuous… But her body was too rigid, and suddenly Simmons had his fingers about her neck and her arms were up, jamming hard into Simmons' elbow… but his grip wasn’t even wavering, wasn’t even trembling…

            “Shit!” Remy cursed to himself, turning away to fumble in the pocket of his trenchcoat for his lockpick.  _De bastard's onto her, he knows who she is… shoulda been in dat room twenty minutes ago, shoulda been ready for dis…_

He found the lockpick, turned back towards the French windows, peering anxiously through the glass even as he stabbed the first skeleton key into the lock and began to work it…  And Rogue was struggling, struggling with all her might, but Simmons was stronger… Remy averted his eyes, tried to focus on the lock, but his hands were trembling and he was cursing himself, cursing the Fates, cursing _everything_ …

            _If it weren't for dis fuckin' dampner I could charge dis fuckin' door and have done wit' all dis bullshit…!!_

            He gave up on the first skeleton key, stabbed in the second.  Raised his eyes, saw Rogue on the floor, clawing, Simmons behind her, grabbing a handful of her hair and yanking her painfully upwards…raising his free fist, driving it forward…

            Rage surged through Remy like a physical thing as Simmons' fist connected with the side of Rogue's face with all the force of a jackhammer, and he could feel the impact as if it'd rammed into his own gut and twisted there, burning and bloody.  And the hatred, the pure, boiling hatred was so strong, so _powerful_ that he could feel the bio-kinetic energy swelling inside him, pushing with all the might he possessed against the dampening field that surrounded him; it was making his flesh, his nerve-endings, the very hairs on his skin crackle and burn.  His fingers were working the lock madly now, his mind a white-hot blaze of fury and loathing as he watched Simmons lugging Rogue's struggling form over to the bed, murderous intent contorting his face, his eyes…

            _You fuckin' motherfuckin' bartards foutous, I'm gonna kill you, I'm gonna kill you you fucker, I'm gonna fuckin' KILL you…_

            The lock gave with a sharp _click_ and the next moment he was on his feet, pushing the doors wide open, the energy buzzing in his limbs, overloading his muscles, and he was in pain, such goddamn mind-numbing pain… but his fingers were closing involuntarily round the knife at his thigh, and he was aiming without thinking at the figure on the bed hunched greedy and ravenous over Rogue's inert form… 

            _I'm gonna kill you I'm gonna kill you I'm gonna kill you I'm gonna kill you…_

            And the knife left his hand.  Whistled through the air like an avenging angel and hit its mark, deathly, final, absolute.

            There was a silence; Simmons' form crumpled.

            Remy stood in the doorway, feeling the pent-up energy in him disintegrate, feeling the pressure inside him, the painful crescendo, dissipate into the atmosphere around him.  It took him a while to submerge the rest inside his bones, his skin, to switch off the remains that had been trying to get through.  The thrumming in his head, in his ears stopped.  Simmons was dead.

            And it was one death Remy was glad, even happy about.

            Rogue was moving, shoving the body aside with a barely concealed disgust, her limbs shaking with the strain.  He went to her, the last vestiges of his power jarring through his legs as he walked, making his muscles feel as if they'd turned to jelly.  He stood beside the bed in the darkness and looked down on her.  The front of her dress had been torn open, and her arms moved instinctively to cover her breasts in an involuntary movement of shame and humiliation that brought his heart into his mouth.  He remembered making love to Simmons' secretary with a dispassionate coldness that suddenly made him want to berate himself savagely when he saw her lying there, so small and wounded and vulnerable and child-like.

            She was shaking, convulsing with pain and terror, but somehow her green eyes found his and she opened her mouth, stammered: “Y-y-you k-killed him…” in a voice he didn’t recognise.  And he smiled.  No humour, no mirth.  Just a cool pride that she was right.  That he'd done it.  That he'd done it for her, again.  That he _would_ do it for her again, a million times over.

            “And dis time I don’t care what you say, chere,” he told her calmly, “he deserved it.”

            She was still shaking, still trying to cover herself and push herself up at the same time.  His heart swelled at the pitiful sight; forgetting himself, forgetting she was still angry with him, he reached out to help her, touching her bare shoulder, only for her to shrug him away impatiently.  He said nothing, respecting her wishes.  He didn’t feel he was worthy enough to touch her right now anyway.  He turned and crossed over to the other side of the bed, where Simmons still lay.

            “Mystique told us he wasn’t to be harmed,” she reminded him softly, but there was a strain of doubt in her voice and he was glad; if he'd had to hear her sticking up for Raven's decisions any longer he would've had to punch something.  Hard.  He bent over, pressed his left palm against Simmons' skull and pulled the knife lodged in his neck out with his right.

            “Even Mystique will have to accept my judgement on dis one,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Dat guy knew exactly who you were, and if I hadn'ta stepped in he woulda killed you.  Dere was no other choice.”

            He wiped the blade clean against the corpse, his mouth twisted in disgust.  When he raised his eyes again he saw that Rogue was looking at him, her eyes on his, an arm still attempting unsuccessfully to protect what little modesty she had left.

            _All dose men, all dose men and she still wants to hide herself from me, still doesn’t want me to see…_

            He dropped his gaze and re-sheathed the knife at his thigh.  Then he raised his eyes to hers again and shrugged his trench coat off; he held her gaze as he leaned forward and slipped the coat over her shoulders.  She clasped it around her like a safety blanket, hiding her flesh from him, the beautiful flesh he'd come to think of as his own.  But it wasn’t his.  It never had been.  It was hers, and he'd claimed it when he'd had no right to.  He was the one who'd made her what she was, who'd tainted her, taken her innocence and made her into Mystique's whore.

            He understood that now.  And he could expect no more thanks from her.  He would never deserve it, no matter what else he did.  No matter how much love he gave.

            He threw her her pack and turned away from the body he'd never owned as she dressed once more, locked herself away from him in that tight, black bodysuit.

-oOo-

            Later they stood together on the balcony, facing one another with the city behind them.  He owed telling her the truth about what had happened between him and Simmons' secretary.  He owed her a lot of truths, but he was tired of hurting her - it was all he ever did to her, and she didn’t deserve anymore hurt.

            He wanted to hold her; he wanted to kiss away the wound on her face, kiss away the memory of the body of the woman in the pink dress suit.  He wanted to tell her he didn’t give a damn about Sinister or this mission, that the only thing he gave a damn about was her.  That the only thing he'd _ever_ given a damn about for a long time was her.  But she didn’t need the burden of his feelings either.  She didn’t need the burden of a love he didn’t think he was fully capable of giving her, not now, maybe not ever.

            “Ready?” he asked instead.

            She looked at him the way she had done a lifetime ago, under the cedar tree in a virginal white dress.  Only the smile was gone.  With one hand she passed him back his trench coat.

            “As Ah'll ever be.”

            She brushed past him, just a whisper of contact, and swung over the balcony.

 

            He watched her, the image of a butterfly he had set free coming unbidden to his mind.

            And without another word, he turned and followed her lead.

-oOo-

[1] Destiny herself pulled the trigger that killed Senator Kelly and started the Days of Future Past timeline. An act that (in the 616 continuity at least) was ultimately prevented by Kitty Pryde. See Uncanny X-Men #142.

_Next: A close encounter with the Phoenix..._


	9. A Stitch In Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avenging one's dead wife never comes easy, especially when it involves the Dark Phoenix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is based on the Exiles series, and is set on Earth-371. Does anyone remember when Gambit headed that psychopathic gang of Exiles? He was the only sane one on the team, so he was the one who had the Tallus and got to lead the missions. Sadly he got killed by a mad alternate of Hyperion. Well, this is a story about that Gambit, and 371 is his homeworld. Most of the material here is old, and I mean OLD. Like from 2004 or something. I started writing it before Gambit got killed in the Exiles comic, so some details in it probably won't tally up with what actually happened later in the series. But I don't care, because this story gave me years of torment, and to be frank, I'm just glad to have it over and done with and out of way - forever with any luck. Apparently a stitch in time couldn't quite save nine. Har har.

            He followed in her footsteps, footprints small and delicate, meandering up the same sandy grey beach to the house.

            The deathly stillness, the desolation… No laughing, no birdsong – no sound but the rush of the sea beating heedless upon the shore; a tract of beach in a Californian town called Valle Soleada, a place he’d once called home for a few short months of his life.

            Home. 

            He was home at last, and it was as cold and dead as he was.  It was a world long consumed by the fire of the Phoenix, where the souls of the living had long since become her nourishment.

            Save for him.  At the moment Death should have taken him he had been saved, stolen away to become the Timebroker’s pawn.  He should have died that day.  His story should have ended then.  But at least here, now – he had a chance at something.  He had a chance at vengeance.

            And yet there was nothing in him.  No rage, no hate, no sorrow as he trudged through the dusty sand and up to the house.  Not even as he stopped and stood before this place of memories with the knife hard and cold at his thigh, knowing what it was he had to do.

            He glanced down at the Tallus at his wrist, his gaze impassive.  His mission glared back at him impassively – _destroy the Phoenix_.  Not an easy task by any means, but either he killed her and gave payback, or he died in the attempt.  Which frankly suited him either way.

            _Nothin’ left to tether me here anymore……_

            Only fifteen minutes had passed since he’d been dropped unceremoniously into this universe. Another jump, another world – it was something he’d quickly become used to, being after all as adaptable as a shadow slinking into shadows, always hiding from the sun.  But he’d been genuinely startled to land on this beach, a place he recognised intimately, a place so personal that at first he had been unable to imagine why the Timebroker would bring him here.

            When he’d read the Tallus and seen what his task was, he hadn’t been so surprised.  _Kill the Phoenix, prevent her from destroying other worlds._ It’d been natural for him to take the mission upon himself.  He wasn’t an assassin, but he knew how it was done, and he knew it intimately.  Besides, he and the Phoenix…they had unfinished business, a score to settle.  _He_ was the one who had to pull the hit, him and no one else.

 

            The house was almost ramshackle, battered by untold years of wind and rain and tempest.  He had not been here in what felt like a lifetime.  He hadn’t wanted to return to this place.  But for the first time since he’d been ripped out of Time and had left this world, he was ready.  He was ready to come back.

            He stepped up onto the veranda.

            It was dusk, the sun radiating effervescent rays of rich, autumnal colour.  The breeze was cooler now, skirting around the corner of the building and lifting up the hems of his battered trench.  It swirled around his legs, making him shiver.  The wind chimes which still hung beside the front door began to sway gently in the wind, tinkling soft and familiar.  It had been a long, long while since he’d last heard its song.  He’d almost forgotten it.  For a moment he stopped underneath them, listened to them playing out scenes from his past, surprised to find sudden tears smarting his eyes.  For the first time in years, he felt.  He _felt_ ; and it was agony.  With one hand he reached out, his fingers disrupting the swinging of the thin, silver cylinders.  The tune stopped.

            It was easier then to gather his courage.  There could be no tenderness in him, no regrets.  He dropped his hand, pushed open the front door, and stepped inside.

            Behind him the chimes began to ring again, but he closed his ears, he blocked them out.

 

            He trod the floorboards of the first floor quietly, smelling nothing but the musty remnants of habitation, the sour dankness of abandonment.  The crumbling skeletons of furniture still remained, here and there; a broken mirror, the withered husks of roses in a vase.  Again, he felt it; he swallowed hard, painfully.  The knife was already beginning to weigh heavily, ominously in the sheath at his thigh; he surreptitiously closed a hand over the hilt, his eyes burning.  _Dis a mistake, y’know issa mistake… You got vested in’trest in killin’ de Phoenix, but you also got vested in’trest in talkin’ to her, in askin’ her why… And she won’t wait for you to spit it out, she’ll kill you ‘fore you get de chance…_

            Because it was so much more complicated than simple revenge.  It was so much more complicated than the fact that she had murdered those he loved, his family, his wife, his entire world.  It was more than just the fact that he’d wake up every night sobbing into his pillow, slick with sweat and wondering why he’d been chosen to live when he’d wanted to die.  It was so much more complicated than the word ‘why’ could contain.

            No – he wasn’t afraid of Death.  But if he could just speak to her first, if he could just get through to her for once…

            _Good luck wit’ dat, boy.  De Phoenix is immortal, she don’t talk or think like us reg’lar folk, you know dat…_

            Nevertheless he found himself climbing the stairs, quiet as a ghost, expertly evading every creak in the floorboards – he knew where they were, he never forgot anything.  When he reached the landing he stood silent, still gripping the blade in its sheath, more out of caution than reluctance now.  His heart was pounding with anticipation, thrumming in his temples, knowing that once again he was teetering on the edge of life and death but there was more to gain here, and conversely,  more to lose…

            _Where are y’, chere…_ he thought to himself, eyes raking every closed door of the passageway.  Why was she so silent, why was she in _this_ place of all places, this lonely little memento of the past…? And suddenly it hit him.  _She’s waitin’ for me.  She’s rememberin’ too…_

            Perhaps he _did_ have a chance after all… …

            He knew where she was now.  He trod lightly towards the main bedroom, no hesitation, no fear of holding back, no fear of making his presence known.  He rested his hand on the doorknob, faltering for just a moment on the threshold of the forbidden sanctuary, this place that had long gone cold.  Then, gently, reverently, he twisted it, letting the door jar open.

            She was where he’d known she would be, standing by the window, hands pressed lightly on the sill, looking out with verdant eyes, just the way he remembered her.  Perhaps she had been watching him all along, coming up the beach like a memory reproduced, replayed, held close to both their hearts and given life once more.  Where the rest of the house had been cold and dusty, she emanated warmth and light as if clothed in fire, flames rippling about her in a coruscating vortex that scorched his senses but consumed nothing.  It filled the room with a radiance so great that he had to shield his eyes, and for a giddy second there was so much warmth and brightness that it felt like one of those summer days in the youth of his life, in the youth of _everything_ …

            He leaned heavily against the frame of the door, his heart racing so fast he could barely breathe.  She was beautiful, so beautiful it hurt him to look at her.

            “Hello, Remy,” she said.  Her voice was intangible, ethereal, like the sound of stars pulsing and planets forming.  He caught his breath, released it slowly, measured.  Her tone had been light, not the imperious roar he had come to expect.  He’d been right – for whatever reason she’d come here, it was not with intentions of violence.  She had come here to _remember_.

            “I’ve been waiting for you,” she added in that timeless voice when he made no reply. “I know _why_ you’ve come, and what you’ve come here to do.  But I can’t let you do it… Not yet.”

            He pushed himself away from the doorframe with an effort, his knees weak. “Not yet?” he echoed hoarsely. “Wha’s dat s’pposed t’ me–”

            “That I have no intention of hurting you, Remy LeBeau,” she spoke to the window, “and that you shall remain safe for the duration of your stay here.”

            The bare skin of her arms shimmered, rippled with light as the undulating surface of a clear pool.  He blinked, momentarily dazzled.  He didn’t understand.

            “Why should I believe you?” he questioned on a breath.

            “Because the Phoenix doesn’t lie,” she responded calmly.  His eyes flashed at the words, but he remained still, his mind only flittering momentarily on the weight of the knife at his side.  His gaze was hostile, suspicious, confused… This was the Dark Phoenix, wasn’t it?  The selfsame destroyer of his world, the murderer of the X-Men, killer of his beloved Storm, his wife…

            She turned to him then, glorious and radiant as the sun and he squinted as she smiled a pale smile at him, a smile that showed him she understood.  Wordlessly she powered down, the flames dying around her, withering in around her at the command of a single thought until there was nothing left standing there but a normal, pale woman, half-bathed in shadow, lit only by the glowing embers of a dying sun.  She was barefoot, dressed only in a sea green night-gown, tousled cinnamon curls cascading over her shoulders in a waterfall of coppery colour, a milky torrent of white streaking down over one cheek…

            _Rogue._

            She smiled again as if having heard his thought, as if she knew she took his breath away.  He hadn’t seen her like this for so long, so beautiful and uncomplicated…

            “Ah’m using up all my strength to push her back,” she explained, and this time it was Rogue’s voice he heard – different, older, wiser, tainted… But it was still her magnolias accent, tempered almost into nothingness but still there. “The combined powers of all the telepaths Ah’ve ever absorbed are keeping her in check, making sure Ah get to be me for this one last, final moment, Remy LeBeau.”

            _One last, final…?_

            “I don’t understand,” he said.

            “You’ve been sent t’ kill me,” she rejoined quietly. “It’s your mission.  You have to set right what was wrong and save all that is to come.”

            “But how did you know…?” he began.

            “The Phoenix is the living embodiment of _all_ life in _all_ universes,” she interrupted him softly. “Not just past life, not just present life, but _future_ life as well.  All is contained within her, the beginning, the middle and the end of all that is.  Ah’ve seen the lives Ah will destroy, Remy LeBeau.  Ah’ve seen the lives Ah _have_ destroyed.”

            Her gaze was intent, meaningful as she said the words.  He inhaled sharply, held his breath.

            “Ah’ve lived a thousand lifetimes, and will live a thousand more,” she continued cryptically, turning her head slightly and facing the window once more. “Here, Ah killed the X-Men.  Ah would’ve killed _you_ , had not Fate written you another destiny.  Ah set this world ablaze, fed upon the souls of the living.” She turned back to him, green eyes shimmering in the dying sunlight. “You must save other worlds, other lives from the same fate.”

            He regarded her, his stance straighter now, his dark eyes narrowed.

            “You _want_ me to kill you…” he half-whispered.

            “Ah want peace,” she replied simply, “for the both of us.”

            He remained silent as the sun faded behind thick clouds and the room fell into dimness.  The atmosphere began to thrum, thunderclouds coming in over the horizon, rushing inward thick and sooty towards the beach, dark and sullen.  The breeze, once dressed so lightly, strengthened into a gale, howling about the little house, sending the wind chimes clamouring on their doorstep.  Suddenly there it was, a memory he’d neglected for so long for fear of stumbling and choking upon it.  _Her elbows on the railing… cherry red lips and a sheer white dress… and him, reaching up to tie the three silver cylinders to the veranda…_

            “Remy,” she began in a low, thick voice, disrupting the memory, “For the longest time Ah thought Ah’d killed you.  Ah thought Ah’d killed the only man Ah ever really loved because of _her_.  But Ah had hope; hope because Ah’d seen this moment, a moment where perhaps we could forgive one another…”

            “So dat’s what dis is all about,” he murmured in a voice laced with disdain. “Y’ want t’ say your last goodbyes, alleviate your conscience, make the guilt go away… Why should I, Rogue?  Why should I when you never extended me de same courtesy…?”

            “Ah know y’ hate me.” Her voice was huskier now, and he dared to think there may have been tears there. “Ah took away everything that meant anything to you.  But we had something, once.  It may not mean anything to you anymore, but believe it or not, it still does to me.”

            He said nothing in reply, but there was bitterness in his silence.  Outside the wind pummelled heavily upon the glass; the wind chime on the porch struck up its tune once more and suddenly there was a lump in his throat – a memory he would stumble and choke upon, but it was there and he couldn’t bite it back.  _There was a time_ , he thought _, there was a time dat meant somet’ing…_

 

            It welled up, newly born from the years of self-denial and hate that had shaped him for so long, rushing in an onslaught of taste and texture and song, and he closed his eyes, wanting to push the tsunami back, wanting to hold it all back… wanting to embrace it…

            He closed his eyes, he remembered.

-oOo-

            It was the sleepy tinkle of the wind chimes on their doorstep that had wakened him, the sound that had already grown so familiar, that was their lullaby most nights when they’d lie there entangled together, closer than they’d ever been before, closer than they’d ever dreamed they could be.  He’d awoken to the pale glow of starlight, to the gentle cadence of the waves lapping on the seashore, to the smooth velvet of her skin against his and he’d looked down to find her naked in his arms, her body shimmering pallid and translucent in the moonlight.  They’d picnicked out on the beach that evening, drank some wine, watched the sunset together and somehow ended up making love in the sand, because it was wild, because it was romantic, because it was dangerous and because they could.

            They could.

            It’d been six months, six months acquainting himself with all that succulent flesh of hers and still every time it was like the first moment he’d touched her bare skin, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to get enough of it.  He didn’t think the novelty would ever wear off…

            She’d awoken soon after he had, pale eyes flickering, bleached grey in the darkness; she’d propped herself up on her elbows to gaze at him, wan, colourless, so that she had looked like an omen, a premonition…  He didn’t know that then.  He’d stared back up at her from under his eyelashes, feeling that now they were able to touch nothing would ever stand in their way again, that the two of them were nothing short of indestructible.

            “What’re you thinkin’?” she’d asked him in a whisper, her finger gliding lazily over his chest; figure eights, over and over, over and over…

            “Dat I love you,” he’d replied huskily.  _Dat I love you an’ dat now dat I have you I ain’t ever gon’ let go of you again…_

            She'd smiled. “Ah love you too,” she’d said.  The breeze had suddenly lifted, making them shudder, making them draw closer together for the warmth.  The shadows of the palm leaves had danced above them, framing the indigo night sky, a canopy glittering with stars so clear, so big and bright they could’ve deceived you into touching them.

            “Ah don’t want this t’ end,” she’d whispered.  He’d twisted his neck towards her, burying his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her.

            “Dis time, no more endin’s.  I promise.”

            She’d said nothing.  But her finger was still on his chest, circling torpidly over his skin, scoring a trail, like a secret symbol, like a silent prayer.

            He still feels it now, sometimes, in the dark.

            Disembodied figure eights on his flesh, where she’d marked him so long ago, and made him hers.

-oOo-

            Several months later – their house was dusty, lonely, silent.  He’d waited outside the door of their bedroom, waiting for her to answer him, a mug of coffee in his hand.  She hadn’t answered.  She’d holed herself up in their room ever since the incident with Jean Grey and the Phoenix.  Sometimes he’d hear her sob in the night, because she’d killed her friend, because she’d taken something inside of her that she hadn’t the strength to contain.  He’d comforted her, putting his arms round her, stroking her hair, rocking her in the hope that soon she would sleep.  It hadn’t been her fault.  It’d just been a tragic accident.  He’d wanted her to know that.  But whenever he put his arms round her, her body had been cold, unresponsive.  She hadn’t even told him to back off.  She’d simply said nothing, making him feel even more impotent and alienated.

            The night before, he’d slept downstairs, on the couch.  He just couldn’t bear those plaintive sobs anymore, fears and terrors he couldn’t quell however much he tried and whatever he said.

            So he’d stood out the door, waiting to make peace with her, but still she’d refused to acknowledge him.

            He’d pushed open the door gingerly, afraid, afraid of _her_.  She’d been sitting in darkness, the blinds drawn, the sunlight penetrating through the slats and casting her in strips of black and white.  She’d said nothing even when he came in, didn’t even turn round to face him.  He’d come in quietly, set the mug on the bedside table, gone over to her.  She was in her nightdress, pale green like the sea, her knees hunched to her chest.  He’d placed a hand on her shoulder.  Her skin had been cool as marble.  Those green eyes, so bright, so vibrant, so full of passion were now dull, haunted.  He’d squeezed her shoulder, said: “Talk t’ me, Rogue.”

            Her eyes blinked, once, flashed orange, red, tongues of fire in the semi-darkness.

            “Ah can see it…” she’d whispered.

            “See what?”

            “ _Everythin’_.” She’d touched her temples with both hands, her brow furrowed deeply. “Dontcha understand, Remy?  Ah didn’t only absorb Jean… Ah absorbed the Phoenix… She won’t let me go, Remy… Ah know it all, Ah know everythin’, but it’s too much, it’s like there’s so much it wants to suck me in and spit me out… mah body, mah mind, mah soul, _everythin’_ …”

            She’d broken down, dropped her head between her knees and wept.

            “Rogue…”

            “This is the price Ah'm payin', Remy, for Jean’s death,” she’d cut in, muffled. “This livin’ hell, this neverendin’ torture…  So many pasts, so many presents, so many futures…  They’re watchin’ us, Remy, _we’re_ watchin’ us… We’ve been here a thousand times over, just never like this…”

            He hadn’t understood her, not back then.  He could never have understood her, not the way he did now.  He’d sat, silent, his hand on her shoulder, feeling it, feeling what was between them splinter and break and be replaced by something new.  Something he couldn’t penetrate.

            He’d known then that he was losing her, that they were ending, that they would never begin again.

-oOo-

            A Monday morning, Ororo’s room shot through with watery sunshine, and it had been another night of unrest, another night spent there in her chair, wondering what had gone wrong, feeling guilty for giving up so easily, but he’d been tired, so tired…

            Rogue had disappeared.  The Phoenix Force had grown steadily within her until there was barely any Rogue left, until he’d wake up in the mornings to see her staring down at him with unfamiliar eyes; cold, clinical, penetrating eyes that had made his skin crawl.  He’d been forced to face the fact that the woman he’d loved had vanished.  It had made it easier to walk away and when he’d come back to collect his stuff she’d gone.  He’d found refuge in the mansion, and for the past month or so he’d found himself returning again and again to Storm’s room, confiding in her without needing to censure himself, and she’d said nothing, listening patiently, always impartial, always understanding.  The past week he hadn’t gone back to his room at night.  It was too cold, too lonely and he wasn’t used to it.

            So he’d spent them at Ororo’s, in her chair.

            He’d spent most mornings missing _her_ warmth, but recently he hadn’t even been wondering where she was anymore.  Today he was looking out the window, feeling for the first time strangely at peace with himself, Ororo sitting on the sill beside him, bringing a light shower of rain down, diamond drops that twinkled, jewel-like, in the lemony sunshine.

            “Perhaps you should try and find her,” she’d been saying. “Perhaps you should try and talk to her, Remy.”

            “No.” There was an odd kind of resolution to his voice, as if the crystal clearness of the beautiful morning had inspired him.  She’d looked down at him, her brow creased.

            “But you and Rogue love one another…”

            “Not anymore,” he’d murmured, his fingers absently toying with the lace hem of her nightgown. “I don’t know who dat person was, de one I spent de past few months in Valle Soleada wit’… but it wasn’t Rogue.  Rogue’s gone.”

            His voice had been hard and Storm had stared at him, wordless.  _Better t’ t’ink she’s dead… Because ever since she imprinted de Phoenix, Rogue’s been dead t’ me…_

            “Remy…” Storm’s hand had touched his shoulder lightly, “I’m sorry.”

            He’d looked up at her, cornflower blue eyes warm and comforting and compassionate unconditionally, always unconditionally and he’d thought, _if there was one person in this world who could teach me t’ forget her, Stormy, it would be you…_

-oOo-

            A storm was brewing.  Daylight was fading, slowly stealing itself away from the little room, where he stood with his hands in his pockets, shivering with the cold, with the memories, with the inescapability of what it was he was here to do.

            He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this alone.  Here, on this world where not a single soul was living but him and her, standing only a few feet apart.  And yet somehow, this world still lived on.  The sun still rose and the moon still pulled in the tides and its core still burned.  It still contained the past they’d once shared together.  It still breathed _them_.

            Despite all his rage, all the hollowness and the hunger and the hatred, Storm had taught him something.  She’d told him that men may die and yet remain alive, their living memory stored in the rocks and the air and the leaves of the trees.  He felt that, here in this dead world.  But he also wondered that she had never told him that some men may live and yet be dead, nothing more than a living memory that replayed itself over and over, waiting to finally be finished.  What she had told him then, and what he knew to be true now – they were two sides of the same coin.  One and the same.  Always had been.

            The dead who live and the living death.

            “I don’t hate you, Rogue,” he murmured. “Not _you_.  Only _her_.  For what she took from me.”

            From her place at the window, Rogue blinked.  Her expression was calm, serene almost.  If she struggled with the inhuman force inside her, she did not show it.  When she spoke, she spoke like a woman in a dream.

            “You deserved happiness,” she said. “Storm gave you that happiness. The Phoenix took it away.  And Ah let her.  Ah let her, Remy.  If you must hate her, then you must hate me.”

            He lowered his head, saying nothing.  Outside a drum-roll of thunder surged over the skies – rain began to smatter on the windowpane of the ramshackle house.  His lips tightened.  Every thunderstorm reminded him of her now, of the wife he had loved and lost.  The wife he had lost because of the woman that now stood across from him, so placid, so tranquil.  For so long now he’d thought of this moment, a moment when vengeance could have been his, when he could show her the rage and bitterness he felt, the hole in his heart and his soul, what she had wrenched from him the day she’d stolen away those he had loved.  She had destroyed his world.  He’d wanted to die along with it, for the pain and the anguish to end.  But in a macabre twist of Fate, the Timebroker had rescued him, taken him out and kept him alive, kept him hurting.  Kept him hating.

            But now, as he looked at her and tried so hard to keep that strange, cold fire blazing within him, he couldn’t do it.

            In those final few months they’d spent together, all he’d seen was an alien face on her features, alien words he could not understand.  But now the flame in her eyes was gone.  The ruthless hunger of the Phoenix was hidden, locked away deep inside her.

            Phoenix and Rogue, he understood, were also two sides of the same coin.  And what he saw before him now was Rogue.  Someone he once had loved with a real, pure love.

            “ _We_ were happy, once,” he returned quietly, not knowing why he should say so, not knowing why he wished to comfort her.

            “Yes.  Once.” She smiled that old smile. “Living here with you… Those were the happiest moments of my life.  But,” and her face darkened, “Ah destroyed those moments; devoured them along with every little thing that meant anything to me in this life.  All the best, most beautiful things we shared… they became hers.  They were so sweet to her, you see?  And so Ah offered them up to her and she fed upon them, one by one until there was nothing left.  Until Ah had destroyed them all and they were gone.”

            There was such remorse on her face that he was almost taken aback.  It was the selfsame sense of remorse he had felt when she had left him and he’d allowed her to walk away; when he’d refused to fight for her because he’d been too weak and tired and scared and selfish.  Storm had helped him to forget that sense of shame.  In a way, he had offered his past up to her, so he could walk out into the future without any regrets.

            He knew how much those regrets had hurt.

            But he had never guessed that _she_ had felt them too, that there had still been enough humanity in her to do so.  It pained him – perplexed him – to realise that she had willingly let it go.  That she hadn’t fought for _herself_ , let alone the both of them.

       So he asked her.  For the first time, he asked her the question he’d come here to ask.

            “ _Why_?”

            There was a real earnestness in his tone and she heard it.  She looked up at him as if she had long expected the question, her gaze solemn and honest.

            “Why, Remy?” she replied sadly. “The answer is simple.  Jean Grey died – and in the moment Ah took her life, in the moment we touched – it was the moment the Phoenix saw inside of me.  And what she saw was a world in itself – inhabited by the ghosts of all the people Ah’d ever absorbed – endless sustenance – endless souls upon which to feed – anyone Ah touched became fresh nourishment, energy, _power_.  Ah was all the flesh she would ever need.  Ah was her host, and in the end she became my parasite.

            “Don’t you see, Remy?  How my gift became more than a curse?  My potential is – always was – for limitless power.  Its only limit is the limit of those Ah absorb – and there are those Ah absorbed whose power was infinite.  My powers became my sentence, my prison, my jailer.  The Phoenix’s hunger became mine – Ah allowed it to corrupt me, and it corrupted me absolutely.”

            She paused, and turned to the glass once more; her face was dappled with the pattern of raindrops on the windowpane, shimmering pale and cold.

            “Ah have the potential to become _every_ mutant that has ever lived…” she murmured. “The best and the brightest; the most evil and depraved.  Ah am legion – _all_ made flesh.  And until that moment when Ah embraced her… Ah never knew myself, Remy.  Ah never knew myself.”

            She turned then, looking at him without fear in her green eyes, knowing he understood.

            “That’s why you must do this, Remy.  Take my life, drive the Phoenix away.  Have your revenge.  Free me.  Free the both of us.”

            Freedom.  He had forgotten the taste of it, the feel of it.  So had she.  This was the last place they had both been free together.  Right here, in this room.  That was why they were here now.  To end it all.  To go back there.  To freedom.

            He slipped the knife from its sheath, the blade curled protectively in his fingers with all the ease which years of inner practice had bestowed him.   She didn’t flinch, didn’t move at all… And he walked forward, kept going till he was right up flush with her and he could feel the warmth, the smell of her…  And it was her.  Just her.

            All the trust and love in her eyes that should have been his.

            He _couldn’t_ do it, he couldn’t end the thing that had defined and directed his life and all his actions for so long now, whether for better or for worse.

            He stopped, he closed his eyes, and he felt it – the agony inside him, pushing through the barriers, making him tremble and falter…

            But then he felt her hands on his – warm hands, woman’s hands – guiding him, guiding the knife; and he couldn’t look, he couldn’t see…

           

            But he could hear, and as he felt the blade slide between sinew and flesh, the wind howled; the  chimes called out their tribute, their dirge – her death knell.

 

-oOo-

_The Phoenix feasts._

_All about him the world is ablaze, burning in the throes of an ungodly torment… Its denizens screaming with an unholy anguish._

_He cradles Storm’s lifeless body in his arms, unable to shed a tear and not knowing why, not even knowing why he’s still alive.  In the distance he can see her, the Phoenix, standing aflame against a backdrop of roiling, sooty clouds and the burning city, eyes wide and wild and shining as if for the first time she knows what it is to_ live _.  She’s laughing.   Laughing._

_He should be feeling indignation, outrage, hate; but oddly, there is nothing.  He doesn’t know how he finds the tenderness in him to place his wife’s body at his feet, but he does.  She is gone.  There’s no use for sentimentality.  What he has laid to rest is merely a husk, nothing more.  He sees that now.  He can only hope that wherever she is, he will soon be too._

_He stumbles amidst the corpses of his friends and his comrades, bloody and burning himself – but there is no agony in him.  No tears, no horror.  No – his mind is cold, calm, resolute.  He lives – he can’t say how – but he has the cold reason of the dead.  For the dead are all about him, and he – he is soon to follow._

_All that lives is the roaring of the fires and the dissonance of her laughter as she stands there  with her back to him.  He staggers towards her from a well of strength he can barely recognise.  It is the passion of a red, hot fury, but one that burns with an icy, blue flame.  Fury that she laughs, that she revels in the destruction of every good thing he’s ever made or ever known.  It is the cold fury in him that finally draws his voice from his mouth, makes him scream:_ “ _Rogue!_ ”

_He doesn’t expect her to turn, he doesn’t expect her to remember the name she once owned, but she does. Before he has time to regret it she turns to face him, aloof and imperious, regarding him with a detached curiosity, as a man might look upon an ant._

_“Little man, do you still live?” The words swirl around him like the voice of the clouds surging overhead; she gazes upon him with contemptuous wonder, and he answers: “No…no…no…” as he finds the desolation deep inside him, gaping ugly and wide like a chasm because he realises it now, he is dead, he is dead._

_Yet still he stumbles towards her, not knowing why or how, but because he has nothing left and no reason to stop or go, to live or die._

_“No?” she echoes in that same eternal voice. “No.  You live.  How do you live, little man?”_

_With dispassionate curiosity she reaches out and touches him, and though her fingers don’t physically burn he feels them as though they have scalded his skin to the bone and beyond.  And then suddenly without word or warning he is drowning; her mind cascading over his like a tidal wave, great and powerful as mountains, old as the universe itself, probing into his psyche with such almighty force he thinks he will be swept away into oblivion……_

_Suddenly she screams.  With an almost audible snap the connection is broken, and he sprawls backwards into the dust and filth, spluttering, gasping for breath… thinking he might die when he hears that scream, such a terrible scream that the burning city shatters all about them and rains down in a million tiny pieces._

_On that scream he hears his name, reverberating all about him, the whisper of the stars, of the universe itself… The world shudders, trembles and tilts… Nausea floods his senses and he retches into the dirt, thinking that somehow, despite all the odds and without even trying, he has killed her…_

_But no.  The crescendo free falls, the world lurches and rights itself – only dust and smoke remains.  All is quiet.  He slowly picks himself up again, inch by painful inch, standing somehow on limbs that feel useless, bloody and broken.  She’s still there, tears pouring unbidden from her green eyes.  They course down her cheeks in fiery torrents._

_“Remy,” she murmurs. “Yes, Remy.  This body loved you.  Still loves you.” And through her tears she smiles an almost pitying smile. “Your soul shall be the sweetest of all.”_

            Then take it, _he thinks_ , take it all and bring me back to Storm… …

 _He kneels before her in supplication – he’s so worn, so tired and empty, he doesn’t care, doesn’t care if she devours the universe itself because_ everything _has ended already…  So he accepts it, without defiance, without any sense of valour.  He opens his arms to her – and she reaches out greedily and –_ feeds _._

_No bravery, nor resignation, nor even emptiness can prepare him for the agony of it._

_Now the unholy screams echo from_ his _mouth as he twists and burns in the maelstrom of her fire; his heart, his soul, his entire self being rent asunder, torn apart, splitting off into molecule parts while his body remains whole… And then the screaming stops, the darkness comes and he tumbles headlong into –_

_Here it is. The half-life, the life-death._

_The light comes, and there is no release or joy, triumph or redemption.  Nothing blessed or divine._

_He opens his eyes and it’s to the insipid light of day._

_He sees the Timebroker, and he knows that he’s not dead, but –_

_Recycled.  They’ve been recycled – three polished silver cylinders tied to a black and gold braid she’s made with her own two hands.  She likes the sound, she says.  She’d had one in her childhood home, in Mississippi.  Three rusty metal cylinders on the veranda, circling over her head as she’d sat on the steps and tried to block out the sound of her parents fighting._

_He hangs them up on their own veranda, now, in that little girl’s future.  He stretches up on tiptoes, muscles working, whilst she leans against the railings watching him with an appreciative gaze.  She’s wearing nothing but a sheer white summer dress and a welcoming, cherry red smile._

_“So whaddaya think?” he asks her, finally finishing up and stepping back to admire his handiwork.  The cylinders swing in lazy circles, each one coloured russet in the evening sun._

_“Perfect,” she replies. “Although Ah kinda wish it wasn’t, the eye candy while you were puttin’ them up was so good.”_

_“Flatterer,” he tosses back with a grin, actually wishing he_ had _put a shirt on because its starting to get damn cold out here now…_

_She smiles like it’s an invitation and turns away, propping her elbows on the railing as she looks out to sea. She is small and wistful against this untamed backdrop, like a child.  He has a feeling then, that this isn’t the first time he’s seen her like this.  He can almost see her, a young girl of 13, staring out onto the banks of the Mississippi with her whole life ahead of her.  Never knowing that somewhere down the line he will be right here, by her side._

_He walks up behind her, placing a warm hand on her bare shoulder, before slipping his arms round her waist and brushing his lips against her neck.  For a blissful moment they share nothing but the silence and each other._

_“Beautiful, isn’t it,” he murmurs, following her gaze. “I’m glad we came here.”_

_“Me too,” she whispers back. “Everythin’ feels so alive out here.  No fightin’, no death, just the world, and you and me.  Like it was meant to be.”_

_She swivels in his arms, bringing her arms up round his neck, pressing her mouth against his in a fervent kiss._

_Above them, the wind chimes start to swing, playing the tune that will soon become the soundtrack of their life together and then –_

-oOo-

            Silence.

            Remy opened his eyes, blinking back the memories as though they had been burned onto his retinas.

            His fist still gripped the knife at her breast, her fingers still intertwined with his.  His act had become hers; it had become their own.  Tears had never come easily to him, not in a long time; but when he held her there at the end they had so long sought, he wept.

            He wept.

            They stayed there for a long time, no words spoken, no words left to say.  The fire died from her eyes, then the light.  If the Phoenix left her it was without a sound.  He cradled her in his arms and looked into her face, realising that for the first time in so many long, dark years he was looking at _her_.  At the face of the woman he’d once loved more than life itself.

            “Goodbye, Remy,” she whispered, at last.

            He smiled and stroked her hair as if not a day had passed between then and now.

            “Goodbye, Rogue,”  he whispered back.

            And at last she closed her eyes and slept.

-oOo-

            He stepped out onto the veranda just as night was descending. 

            Strange to say but suddenly this cold, dead world had died a little more.  He stood on the steps and breathed hard, as though only just understanding what it was to live again.  He thought it was true – that he only _had_ just begun.  When the Phoenix had first taken her and she’d left him, she’d killed a little piece of him.  Her corruption had corrupted him.  There was no one to blame for that.  It was just the way things had turned out.

            He glanced down at the Tallus on his wrist – but it hadn’t been updated yet.  That was okay.  He needed to be alone for a moment.  He needed to breathe deep.

            Behind him the chimes began to tinkle softly in the wind.  He expelled a pent-up breath in a sudden rush.  It was cold now, under the gloaming sky shot through with the pinpricks of stars.  He reached out involuntarily, held the silver bells still, not wanting to remember how it had all started right here so long ago, here where it had all ended so fittingly today.

            And now there really _was_ nothing but emptiness.  A hollow deep inside that he couldn’t even begin to learn how to fill just yet.

            He thrust his hands into his pockets and started to walk.  Back up the beach, in her footsteps, in his own; but this time in the opposite direction.  He’d often filled the emptiness with thoughts of her, but now he filled it with the sound of the sea and his footfalls in the sand and the soft singing of the wind chimes far behind him.

 

            For the first time in a long time he walked on out of the emptiness and into a place where another story could begin.

-oOo-

_Next: The Threads come full circle..._


	10. Day by Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One single romance writer plus one married art dealer equals Rogue and Gambit in the real world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this has been sitting on my computer for well over a year and since this is very probably the last X-Men piece I'll write, I figured I'd post this up as it was, since I can't be bothered to edit it. This story is based in the 'real world', and is the last chapter of Threads (unless I can be bothered to write an epilogue). Just to say a huge thank you to everyone for following this story and all my others, and for taking the time to review what you have read. Your words, thoughts and comments have been my lifeblood. I hope you all continue to sail that Romy ship in the future!

            It began on a rainy Monday lunchtime, on the threshold of a New York City Starbucks.

            He was going out and she was coming in, and somehow the two of them managed to collide, knocking the manuscript out of her hands and into a muddy puddle at their feet.

            With a vexed exclamation she stooped over to rescue the half-submerged papers, expecting him to walk on without looking back; but out of some unknown chivalric instinct he propped the cell phone on his shoulder, knelt down, and tried to salvage what he could, biting back a few choice oaths whilst the voice down the phone prattled on at him.

            She would’ve laughed, if her papers hadn’t been so completely ruined.  When she looked up into his face she saw that he was mouthing heartfelt _sorries_ at her, and despite her chagrin she found herself smiling and shaking her head with an air of helpless forgiveness.

            “Look, Raven,” he was saying into the phone (with a delicious hint of _accent_ tucked in there), “can I call you back later, chere?  Got myself into a bit of a mess here…”

            “Oh no, it’s okay, really,” she protested urgently, not wanting to get in the way of his call.  She brushed water off the top sheet of her pile and added: “I’m nearly done here.”

            He waved a hand at her, brushing aside the comment, and handed her the bundle he’d already rescued from the muddy depths of the puddle.

            “I’ll call you back later,” he continued into the phone. “Promise.  Okay?  Love you, chere.  Love you.  Bye, bye, bye, bye…”

            She stole another glance at him as he ended the call and dropped the cell back into his coat pocket.  Unruly auburn hair and deep brown eyes with a hint of chicory.  When he looked up and returned her gaze, it didn’t feel like the first time.

            “I’m _so_ sorry…” he apologised, trailing off and staring like she was, before suddenly looking away distractedly.  He picked up a few more papers and handed them to her, dripping water from the corners. “I just… I was on the phone, and I didn’t see –”

            “It’s okay, really,” she assured him, shaking off the sudden strangeness between them.  She held up the veritable dishcloth he’d handed her and considered wringing it out.  The thing was trash anyway.

            “But your dissertation… it’s ruined.” He eyed the pile in her lap and groaned. “And it’s _huge_ …”

            “It’s _okay_ ,” she insisted, almost laughing at his earnestness. “I can print off a new copy… most of it’s intact anyway… Shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

            She stood up just as he did, promptly dropping a quarter of the pile back into the puddle, which he managed to snatch up quickly before it could suffer anymore damage.

            “ _When she awoke it was to find him gone…_ ” he read off the top page as he passed it back to her. “You’re a writer?”

            She laughed, a paltry cover for sudden embarrassment. “Of a kind.” She glanced at her watch.  The meeting with her publisher was in forty-five minutes, and there was no way she was going to get another copy of her manuscript run off in time.  _And_ she’d left her flashdrive at home.  _Damn_. “Looks like I’m gonna haveta resched my meeting,” she added dismally to herself.

            He ran a hand through that unruly auburn hair and said sheepishly: “I owe you a coffee.”

            She glanced at him; briefcase, suit and tie, a businessman through and through except when you got to the five O’clock shadow.  Athletic and lean and gorgeous and… familiar.  Now where had she seen him before?

            “No, no, no,” she protested, holding up her palms and shaking her head emphatically, “it’s okay.  You must be in a hurry…  I won’t keep you.  Besides, you did a great job of saving my stuff…” she said, just as the single soaking sheet she was holding up gave way and tore in half.

            “I owe you a coffee,” he insisted.

 

            She phoned her publisher whilst he ordered her a grande vanilla latte and himself a double espresso.

            “The deadline was today,” her publisher told her irately, “and I’m afraid I can’t postpone it any longer for you, Anna.  This is getting beyond a joke.”

            “Maybe it’s just as well,” she replied dejectedly. “The thing just isn’t _good_ anyway.  I just can’t write under pressure.  Maybe we should call this whole thing off… wait until I get some real inspiration.”

            There was a pause; her publisher sighed, relented.

            “Look, I can push back the deadline a couple of months, if it helps.  But you need to come to a decision soon, Anna.  Because this house isn’t willing cover your ass anymore.  You’re on a contract, let me remind you.”

            “I know.”

            “Then think about it.  Long and hard.  This is your last chance to make it big, Anna.  Just ask yourself – is it still what you really want?”

            She sighed and ended the call, wondering what it was she really wanted at all, and as usual, finding no answer.

            “Here’s your coffee.” He was right beside her, a sympathetic look on his face – he’d obviously been listening in on her conversation. “Sorry about that.”

            “It’s okay,” she repeated for the umpteenth time. “Thanks,” she added, raising the coffee cup to her lips and taking a sip.  Hot and sweet and frothy.  Just the way she liked it.  She should have been surprised at that but for some reason she wasn’t.

            “No problem.”

            He smiled, and because she was single she allowed herself to stare a bit.  He was gorgeous – the proverbial tall, dark and handsome she usually went for.  But he’d also been saying _love you’s_ down the phone to some probable girlfriend, which made him a little less delectable – though only a _very_ little. “Shall we sit?” he asked, when they’d both realised they’d been staring openly at each other without saying a word.

            “Sure, but aren’t you –?”

            “Busy?” He shook his head and pulled out a nearby barstool seat. “Nah, not really.” She thanked him again, dumped her bags and her ruined manuscript on the table, and took the seat. “I was just goin’ out earlier because the reception on my cell went on me,” he explained, taking the seat next to her. “Should phone her back,” he added as an afterthought, frowning.  But he didn’t.

            Instead he remained there beside her, sipping his espresso as she tried to rearrange her battered and disordered manuscript.  She could feel his eyes on her as she did so, eyes that were every so often drawn unwillingly away, only to rest on her again after another fruitless moment of feigned indifference.  It was bewildering, it was disconcerting, it was flattering.  It was crazy because at that moment she was fighting a very powerful urge not to return that look even though she’d known him for all of ten minutes.  If that.

            They were strangers after all.  Etiquette didn’t exactly demand even small-talk.

            So she ignored him, even though he was clearly checking her out, and even though she was begging God or the fates or whoever it was that had placed them here together that he would ask her if he could have her phone number and that she would say _yes_.

            “So you’re a writer,” he said after a moment, with the practiced ease of someone who was used to opening conversations.

            “Uh-huh,” she nodded, smiled, sipped at her coffee again whilst feeling a little giddy.  She didn’t think it was the sugar high, or the caffeine kicking in either.

            “So what do you write?” he asked.

            She set down her coffee cup and stared at the froth gathered on the rim. “Um… Nothing really… Nothing that’s important anyways.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this embarrassed. “I guess they’re what critics might call ‘airport romances’.”

            “And that’s a bad thing?” he questioned humorously, sipping from his own cup.

            “Well, it’s not exactly what I really _want_ to write, but it’s what I’m on contract to write.  For now anyway.” She sighed, still staring at her cup.  He was still looking at her and she didn’t think she could quite meet his gaze.  She still felt as if she’d seen him before… probably in this very café, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.  For some reason double espressos seemed to be so him, and she thought maybe she’d seen him drinking them in here before.

            “So, how many books have you published then?” he asked, and she couldn’t tell whether he was just making polite conversation or whether he really wanted to know.

            “Just the one.”

            “Anything I might’ve read?”

            She laughed. “I doubt it.”

            “Really?” He smiled. “I fly a lot, and I’m really into romance.  So there’s a chance…a really small chance… That I might recognise your name…”

            She laughed again.  She loved the way he flirted without seeming to, so naturally it seemed like second nature.  Maybe it was.  Heartened, she chanced a _real_ look at him, aiming for indifference, aiming for friendly, aiming for _anything_ that wasn’t _you’re cute_ … And when their eyes met again like they were trying to figure out if this was for real or not, she knew she’d failed.  She found him hopelessly attractive; and the attraction was mutual.  Neither of them could quite hide it.

            “You might do.” She half-smiled, breaking the eye contact with momentary discomposure. “My name’s Anna.  Anna Raven.”

            He looked surprised. “Raven…?”

            “Uh-huh.  Like that girl you were just on the phone to.” (And now she really _was_ trying desperately for indifference). “Freaky, huh?” She paused, smiled slyly at him and continued: “So.  Do you recognise my name then?”

            He looked as sheepish as he had done when he’d knocked her papers into the puddle.  She decided she liked the way he did guilty schoolboy too.

            “Well, much as I’d like to flatter you… I’d have to say no.  Sorry.”

            “It’s okay.” She turned back to her drink and took a sip. “I didn’t think you would have.”

            Self-consciousness took her again.  She looked out the window and stared at the umbrellas bobbing past in the rain, the disembodied feet trying desperately to avoid the puddles.  Beside her, he was still turned towards her, like he was still really interested.

            “Mississippi,” he suddenly said, and she looked at him, eyebrow raised as he said; “Just worked it out.  Your accent.  Mississippi.  Mostly gone, though.” He grinned again, outwardly flirtatious this time. “Shame.”

            “Clever boy,” she returned appreciatively. “But I don’t even have to guess with your _chere_ ’s.  And most Cajuns don’t even say that anymore.”

            “I’m an old-fashioned boy,” he grinned.

            “Now why do I get the impression you ain’t,” she bantered back, letting a little of that Southern lilt seep into her voice.  If anything his grin grew wider.

            “I like to keep the ladies guessing.”

            _I just bet_ , she thought wryly to herself.

            “Well,” she said out loud in a testy tone, feeling as if all this banter was going just a _little_ too far too fast, “speakin’ of ladies, ain’tcha gonna call her?  _Your_ lady, I mean?”

            “My what?”

            “Your girlfriend.  Raven.”

            He looked confused for just a split second, before bursting into laughter.

            “Raven?  My girlfriend?” He cracked up again and she frowned at him.

            “What’s so funny?” she demanded, feeling put out.  He shook his head and wiped his eyes, hamming it up so badly she knew it was entirely for her benefit.

            “Nothing,” he chuckled, calming himself down with a very theatrical superhuman effort. “Raven’s my daughter,” he explained, once he’d managed to get over the dramatics. “My five year old daughter.”

            “ _Oh_.” She blushed, embarrassed.  She stole a look at his left hand, and there, of course, was the plain gold band on his wedding ring finger. “You’re married,” she blurted.  _What an idiot_.

            “In a manner of speakin’.” He was sombre now, turning in his seat and picking up his cup saying; “I’m in the process of goin’ through a pretty messy divorce.” He lifted the cup to his lips and glanced askance at her, seeing her eyes still on his finger. “Don’t have the heart to take it off yet, y’know?”

            She nodded, though in truth she didn’t really understand at all.  She hadn’t been in a lot of relationships, and certainly hadn’t come even close to thinking about marriage.  Luckily, before she had the chance to think of some sensitive way of continuing the conversation, his cell phone began to ring.

            “It’s Raven,” he murmured half to himself as he took the phone out of his pocket. “I should take this.” He downed the rest of his coffee and stood, reaching for his briefcase. “Sorry about the manuscript again, Ms. Raven.”

            “And thanks for the coffee,” she replied, still inwardly kicking herself for flirting with a married man.  He smiled that oh-so-familiar crinkle at her, as if to say _any time_ , just as he took the call.

            “Yes, chere, I know poppa promised you he’d call back, but he got kinda distracted…”

            He brushed past with a wink and she watched him walk out the café and down the sidewalk, his briefcase doubling up as a makeshift umbrella.  When she turned back to her coffee it was to find his business card tucked neatly under her right elbow.

            She picked it up and held it to the light.

            _Remy LeBeau, art dealer.  New York, London, Paris, Rome._

-oOo-

            A month later and she had most of the final draft rewritten and edited.

            She sent off the manuscript and waited for the phone call.

 

            When it came she half knew what was going to be said.

            She stood at her apartment window in her underwear, gazing out over a dusky city while her agent said to her, “They’ve decided not to renew your contract, Anna.”

            She shrugged to herself, massaged the bridge of her nose with her free hand and said, “Great.  Means I can write whatever the hell I want now.”

            It didn’t take the sting away, though.  The sense of rejection.

            Oh well.  She chucked the phone onto the sofa and padded into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water.  Then she went back to her desk, just to prove that she _could_ write whatever she wanted, and sat in front of her laptop.  For what felt like minutes she stared blankly at the screensaver, unable to focus.  The trouble was, she didn’t really know a whole lot about men.  And here she was, a romance writer, one who only dated out of desperation – and only boring, safe men at that.  Exciting men didn’t come her way.  Unless it happened to be on a Monday afternoon in an inner city Starbucks…

            Without thinking she opened up a blank page and typed impulsively: -

            _Languid mornings, Sundays: for a change – just for a change – it is he who brings her a cup of coffee, instead of she._

            She halted.  For a moment she gazed absently at the words, her teeth tugging thoughtfully at her lower lip, trying to bite back a smile.  One line, just one line, and she was already letting herself write about _him._

            Her eyes wandered involuntarily to the small white rectangle of card pinned surreptitiously to the corner of her noteboard.

            _Remy LeBeau, art dealer.  New York, London, Paris, Rome._

A tell-tale smile touched her lips. 

            Putting his number up there had been a hell of an exercise in testing her primary resistance, because she was lonely and frankly _needful_ ; and because he’d remained there at the back of her mind for weeks now, along with a recurring dream she couldn’t shake.  She didn’t do one-night stands – never had done – but with him, for the first time, she’d been sorely tempted.  _Shamelessly_ tempted.  He was a married stranger with a five year old daughter, and she’d _still_ been tempted because she’d never had a man look at her the way he had, and she’d most certainly never felt so sinfully attracted to a man she’d only just met, not in all her life.

            But she’d never called him.  Not once.

            It was embarrassing enough to cope with the fact that he was already haunting her dreams after about fifteen minutes in one another’s company, that he was there offering her cups of frothy vanilla latte with that come-hither smile on his delectable lips whilst she lay in bed, at night.  Alone.  Right where she was supposed to be.

            So why did she keep thinking naughty thoughts like _he left me his phone number so he obviously wants to see me and he’s about to be divorced so an affair won’t really matter anyway…_?

 

            She _could_ still call him, of course.  Not that she’d know what to say to someone whom she knew practically nothing about, and whom she happened to think was the most gorgeous creature that’d crossed her path since… well, forever.  And the fact that he tempted her frightened her sense of propriety so much that the idea of it had to be completely out of the question.  So she stood up, snatched a random bill that’d been lying on her desk, and pinned it up over his number so that she wouldn’t be tempted to call it.

            She hadn’t quite the heart, however, to cover up the part that spelled out his name.

-oOo-

            It was another rainy lunchtime another month down the line, in the same Starbucks, at the same seat at the same tear-stained window where she’d first met him.

            She was free of the obligation to her publishers, but that didn’t mean that freedom was any less difficult than working under pressure, especially not when life had other demands on her.  Like earning a living, and being exhausted at the end of the day – too exhausted to even think about creating anything.

            She stared down at her notebook, at the words, _Languid mornings, Sundays…_ which had been crossed out several times and promptly rewritten again in a careless, slapdash scrawl. She had no idea what to write next.

            She sighed and dropped her pen, cupped her chin in her palms and stared vacantly at the windowpane.  Runnels of rainwater were shimmering in the watery afternoon light, sparkling in a familiar lattice pattern that reminded her of a dream she always had, a dream she’d always forget come the morning… Threads of gold and butterfly wings… The sea shimmering like crystal, flowing on into infinity and far, far beyond… …

            “Ms. Raven,” interrupted that familiar whiskey and molasses voice somewhere behind her, almost making her jump out of her skin and certainly out of her reverie.  She flipped her notebook shut quickly and half-turned, seeing him inching through the lunchtime crowd and into the chair beside her.  He was soaked.

            “Mr. LeBeau,” she greeted him, shielding her book from water droplets as he slipped off his overcoat and shook the rain from his hair. “Ain’tcha got an umbrella yet?”

            He smiled at her, probably because he kept teasing that Southern drawl out of her without her knowing; or maybe because he was just glad to see her.

            “So you _did_ get my card,” he remarked, ignoring her question. “But you didn’t call me.  Why?”

            “Maybe ‘cos you’re married,” she snorted.  She shot a quick glance at his left hand.  The golden band was still there.

            “In name only,” he replied with mock tragedy.  He glanced at her cup. “Top up?”

            She sighed, but couldn’t help smiling. “I really shouldn’t.  But I will, if you’re offering.”

            He got in the queue without bothering to ask what she wanted.  She did her best to ignore him while she waited, even though she could feel his eyes on her from across the room, like they were born to be looking at her.  The sensation made her uncomfortable and curious and desirable and dizzy.  When he came back, it was with a vanilla latte, the same conciliatory coffee he’d bought her before – extra sweet with all the trimmings.  When he sat it was beside her, watching her like he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

            “So,” he continued their conversation casually, as if they’d never left off from the last time, “if I wasn’t married, would you have called me?”

            “I don’t do complicated,” she replied off-handly, trying her best not to look at him.

            “Who says this is complicated?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but opened his briefcase and pulled out a lurid pink book with neon yellow lettering on the front. “But since the last time we met, I actually had a conversation with my wife.  I told her I’d met an author in Starbucks at lunchtime.  Turns out she had your book.  I borrowed it.”

            If there was a moment she wished she could’ve buried herself quietly under the ground and died, it would’ve been that one.

            “Oh mah _Gawd_!” she cried out in anguish as he flashed the book at her with a triumphant flourish. “Did yah… did yah read it?”

            He grinned and before she could snatch the offending article from him he’d stowed it back into his briefcase protectively. “Nah.  Didn’t get past the blurb.  You’re right – ‘airport romance’ really ain’t my style.” She buried her face in her hands and groaned, but he didn’t let up. “So, did you finish writing that manuscript I almost managed to destroy for you?”

            She dropped her hands and turned away from him, her cheeks flaming.

            “Yeah.  I sent it off a couple of weeks back.”

            “Working on something new?” he asked, glancing at the notebook.

            “Kind of…”

            “Kind of?”

            She nodded. “Haven’t got much to show for it really.  Only a couple of lines.”

            “And it’s a story about…?”

            “Two people,” she answered coyly, sipping her coffee and smiling through it.

            “A man and a woman…?”

            She nodded.

            “A love story,” he surmised, making the only conclusion he could have.  She nodded again and tried not to blush, because the way he was looking at her was getting her more hot under the collar than the interrogation was.

            “And that’s different to your previous work _how_ exactly?” he asked, an eyebrow cocked.

            “It’s very different, thank you very much.” She halted, saw him still looking at her expectantly and relented with a sigh. “It’s difficult to explain.  I haven’t really got a story at all.  Just thoughts… impressions… the odd disconnected word here and there…” She paused, waiting for him to yawn or change the subject or something, but he sat waiting patiently for more, so she continued awkwardly. “I’ve got so much floating around, but nothing to stick together into one big whole – know what I mean?  It’s just one big jumble waiting to coalesce.  In other words…” she added quickly, reddening as she realised she was rambling now, “I have a _serious_ case of writer’s block.”

            She stopped; he let out a pent up breath and looked at her with eyebrows raised.

            “Sounds like you need a break, chere,” he said.

            “Tell me about it,” she muttered. “A seriously big one.”

            “No,” he corrected her humorously. “I meant a _break_.  As in fun and games.”

            She allowed herself to laugh. “I don’t really do fun and games anymore,” she admitted.

            “I can tell.” He didn’t elaborate, though she thought he might have.  At that moment the door opened and a woman in a business suit entered; he stood quickly, almost furtively, his body language suddenly speaking louder than words.

            “Date?” she asked him, going for nonchalant, and he grinned down at her, seeing right through her anyway.

            “Lunch with a work colleague,” he corrected her without missing a beat. “Care to join us?”

            “No thanks.” She opened up her notebook again, feeling confused. “I’m going in a minute.” _And three’s a crowd_ , she added mentally, hoping the addendum didn’t show on her face.  The woman had just spotted him and looked as if she thought the same way too. “But maybe I’ll see you around sometime,” she finished carelessly.

            “I hope so,” he said.  He looked as if he were about to join his friend, but just as he’d taken a step away he turned back quickly and said, “Come out with me tonight.”

            She almost spat out her coffee.

            “Are you serious?!”

            “Completely.” And he looked it.

            “I don’t believe you,” she scoffed.

            “Come out with me tonight,” he insisted, and when it looked like she was about to protest he ploughed right on, ignoring her. “Meet me out here at seven.  I’ll take you somewhere nice.  Take your mind off things.” She stared at him, waiting for a twitch of the lip, a blink of eye, anything to give him away.  When she didn’t see a single sign, it was somehow worse than if she had done.

            “You are _so_ walkin’ the edge, Mr. I’m-Still-Married-LeBeau,” she murmured under her breath.

            “Remy,” he corrected her flippantly. “You know you want to.”

            “Don’t tempt me.”

            At that moment the woman had just about reached them and he grinned, took a step back and said, “I’ll see you at seven,” before turning and walking off.

-oOo-

            She rushed home walking on air, feeling like a teenager all over again, feeling… like an idiot for letting herself give in so easily.  She might as well have been going on a blind date for all she knew him, and she couldn’t believe she was _actually going through with it,_ but– Was she?

            She stood grinning in front of the mirror, asking herself the same question a handful of times before mentally answering, _yes!  Hell yes!_

            Because she was lonely and needful and she needed a break, and… because he was too beautiful to say no to.  Especially since he’d been the one to start it, especially since he’d _wanted_ to see her enough to ask her out.

            Stupid analysis.

            She wiped the smile off her face, cleared her throat and set to work.  She did up her hair and put on makeup (including mascara, which she usually left out), and wore a dress she hadn’t worn before and had bought only ever with the intention of staring at it until she got too old or fat to wear it.  She even wore heels.

            She even wore matching underwear.

 

            They met outside the Starbucks at seven, just as they were coming up in opposite directions like it’d all been timed perfectly to the last split second.  He was in a slick grey suit and he still hadn’t shaved.

            When she looked at his hand, the ring was still on his finger.

            “You look gorgeous, Miss. _Please-Don’t-Tempt-Me_ -Raven,” he teased her as they stood outside the café, already too much friends to shake hands, too much strangers to hug, and too much confused to even dare to kiss, even on the cheek.  So they stood on the sidewalk with just a painfully short distance between them that nevertheless seemed far too great even to begin to bridge.

            “You don’t clean up too badly yourself,” she bantered back with a shyness she rarely felt in the presence of men. “Mr. I’m-Still-Married-LeBeau,” she finished off pointedly, glaring at the ring on his finger.

            “So _that’s_ how we’re going to play it.” And he gave a real sigh this time. “All right – I’ll be a good boy, I swear.  Not that I had any other intentions, of course.”

            He gave her his arm like a gentleman, though still unable to suppress the twinkle in his eye; she took it.

            “Of course,” she returned wryly. “I’m just here to take my mind off things, right?”

            “Right.”

            He smiled down at her as he hailed a taxi cab.

 

            They went to a bar in one of the trendier parts of town, one she guessed he spent a lot of time in.

            They sat by the window where he couldn’t pull any moves without the whole world seeing; his decision entirely, of course.  They talked a lot until they both ran out of things to say and were forced to sit in silence.  She didn’t feel awkward in their silence.  She felt more awkward about the way he watched her, from beautiful eyes she felt she knew but didn’t.  And he did exactly what he’d promised he would.  He didn’t get too close, he didn’t angle for anything, he didn’t pry.  He took her mind off everything.  Off frustrations, off monotony, off boredom, off a story she couldn’t write because it wasn’t _hers_.  It was theirs.  Whatever she was going to write, it was going to be about him; it was going to be about this.  She didn’t know what it meant, but she felt it.  He inspired her in ways she couldn’t even begin to explain.

 

            Later they walked out together on the sidewalk, her laughing because his jokes were so inane and him grinning because she was laughing so hard at him.

            She was staving off calling a cab because she enjoyed his company so much and because she wanted to see how far this would go.  Because she was so tempted to go back with him to wherever he stayed that she just had to see if she could hold out or not.

            “This is just _so_ against the rules,” she groaned, when she looked at her watch and saw that it read 10:30.

            “What is?” he questioned.

            “Going out.  On a work night.  It just isn’t done.  I’m gonna be a wreck tomorrow.”

            “But you had fun?” he asked, so earnestly that she couldn’t help but laugh.  He looked offended and she grabbed his arm and squeezed it, saying: “I had a great time.  Thank you.”

            He said nothing, only giving her that appraising look that he so often gave her.  That curious, questing look as if he had a myriad of questions he didn’t even know how to begin to ask.

            “What?” she quizzed, tugging playfully on his arm again.  He shook his head, a small smile creasing his lips.

            “I can’t say it.  You’ll kill me if I do.”

            It was her turn to look at him quizzically, but he halted quite suddenly and hailed an approaching taxi cab.  The car pulled in and the driver wound down the window and asked: “Where to?”  And he said: “Wherever the lady wants to go.”

            He took a step back and she let go of his arm with a testy expression on her face.

            “I didn’t mean I wanted to go home _just_ yet…”

            “You’re right,” he interrupted her, “it’s late.  Don’t wanna be responsible for you getting fired or something…”

            His mouth was hitched into a lazy smile that she didn’t buy for a second.  She swivelled round and smiled apologetically to the cab driver.

            “Sorry but I’m staying.  Sorry to waste your time.”

            “Suit yourself.” The man shrugged and pulled out.  Anna stared after him a minute, then turned back to Remy, her eyebrows working and her eyes flashing.

            “ _Tell_ me,” she demanded, and he spread out his hands in self defence, as if he was afraid she really _was_ going to kill him…

            “ _Remy_ …”

            “Chere,” he cut her off helplessly, “don’t you get it?  If this continues the way it is I’m gonna haveta invite you back to my place, and you’re gonna say yes, and goddammit…” He paused, ran his hand through his hair with that adorable schoolboy look and continued on an exhalation of breath: “I am _so_ gonna have to sleep with you.”

            She gaped at him.  He shrugged in another gesture of helplessness.

            “I’m so _into_ you, Anna.”

            A pause.

            “ _Really_ into you.”

            Another pause.

            “And I don’t even know why.  It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

            He laughed a light-headed laugh and ran his hand through his hair again.  Then he turned away from her and hailed another cab.  She watched him as he spoke a few words to the driver and slipped him a few dollar bills.  As he held the door open for her, like the gentleman they both knew he wasn’t.

            She slid inside the cab and looked up at him and he looked down at her with a small, self-deprecating smile on his lips before he slammed the door shut and she was whisked away.

            That was all it took.

            That was all it took for her to fall in love with him.

-oOo-

            August, September, October, November.

            Four months rolled by and still all that remained of her next big story was those two lines in her little black notepad.

            For three of those four months she dated a guy on and off until they drifted apart and just stopped calling each other.

            She went back to her notebook a couple more times before finally realising that the reason she had the writer’s block wasn’t because she couldn’t write but because she had nothing to write yet.  So she surrounded herself with postcards and reference books and photos and glamour magazines – things that made no demands on her and that she hoped would in some way inspire her.  It didn’t take her mind off the loneliness but it made it easier to deal with.  It made it easier to immerse herself in her own little world where love was safe and on paper.

            Nevertheless she went back to the Starbucks now and then.  She would sit in that seat and stare out the window.  Sometimes she’d get her pen and open up her notepad.  She’d wait for him to come and tell her where their story was headed next.  But nothing ever happened.  He’d never turn up.  Maybe he’d left town, or was away on business.  She’d get back on the train home and sit there feeling like she’d done this a million times before.

            It was funny.  Of all the dozens of people with whose lives she intersected every day, she shared nothing with any of them except the same little slice of space-time.  Day in, day out.  The train was like time, marching forward in one simple direction towards the same old, unmoving destination.  But she thought about him more and more often because he gave her the sense of other destinations to be had.  She shared more with him than just that same slice of space-time.  It was nothing more or less than _just a feeling,_ but it was enough for her to realise that stories don’t _happen_ , they just _are_.  A random set of events that are plucked out of the ether and carry on and out into existence.

            You might meet a man and he may very well be married (even if in name only), and there’s not a lot you can do about it when you think you might have fallen in love with him.

            Well, there was something she _could_ do about it, and she had the business card to prove it.

            One day, after getting home from her part-time desk job, she went to her noteboard and finally found it pinned up under bills and letters and photos and a dozen other business cards she’d put there just to stave him off.

            And just because she could she dialled the number, she called him.

-oOo-

            Friday evening in the city and the bars were so packed people were spilling out onto the streets; she found herself out under a dusky sundown, swigging beer from a bottle whilst navigating the edge of some random fountain in some random park.

            “Y’know,” he began conversationally, taking his third circuit round the fountain with her, “you have to be one of the weirdest girls I’ve ever met.”

            “Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?” she called back.

            “Absolutely,” he replied.  He stopped, his overcoat slung over one shoulder, his eyes following her as she walked on ahead.

            “S’funny,” he observed, ignoring any sense of chivalry left in him as she teetered precariously on the narrow stone ledge and over the water – he hadn’t touched her since they’d met up, “this ain’t exactly what I had in mind when you called me up and asked me out on a date.”

            “Who says this is a date?” she pouted at him, feigning indignation and failing abysmally when a smile split her face anyway.  She’d never felt this ridiculously happy in all her life.  And it wasn’t just the drink that was doing it.

            “ _You_ do,” he answered humorously, still watching her attempt to make her third full circuit round the fountain. “Your body does.  Your eyes do.  That stupid grin on your face does.”

            “And you still have a ring on your finger,” she reminded him pointedly, having made it a quarter of the way round already without falling, “so this is definitely _not_ a date.”

            “So what is it then?”

            “It’s a business drink,” she returned after a moment’s thought.  She wobbled a bit and righted herself.  A few more steps and she’d be right up flush with him again.

            “Oh, right.” He rolled his eyes. “And what business might we be discussin’ right now, chere?”

            She loved it.  That little hint of the bayou that kept creeping back into his voice.  She covered the few steps between them, halted and stared down at him, considering.

            “I’m waitin’ for you to inspire me, sugah,” she decided at last.  He frowned, he grinned.  He shook his head and she grinned back.  Was this what it was like, to be in love?  He made her stupid and giddy. Giddier than the beer did.  So she clambered down and sat on the low wall to steady herself, and after a moment he sat down next to her.  He watched her quietly as she pulled her little black notepad out of her purse and opened it up, pen poised in hand as if ready for him to give her a bolt from the blue.

            “You’re definitely weird,” he murmured.

            “So?” she pouted.  He was close, so close.  She could smell his aftershave and the odd sneaky cigarette he’d steal during his lunchbreaks.

            “So nothin’,” he answered, that warm, honey gaze on her cheeks. “I like it.”

            It was no use; he was far too distracting.  She glared at the single sentence on her page as if it was something traitorous.

            “Still no joy?” he asked, seeing her expression and deciding to change the subject; because they both knew that if he didn’t she’d probably end up kissing him or vice versa.

            “No,” she sighed. “Not really.  All I have is this.  The beginning of a story that doesn’t even have a plot yet.” She paused a moment, unable to explain it, and he spoke up wryly: “It’s a romance – you really think it needs a plot?”

            “This one does,” she insisted, pouting at his sarcasm and getting goose flesh when she saw the way he looked at her mouth.

            “So what are you waiting for?” he asked her seriously, and she thought about it, unable to tell him what she thought – that stories were already out there, floating around, waiting for someone to pick them out of the air and put them into words.  That _everything_ had been said before, _thought_ before.  That writing it down just made it tangible and _real_.

            _You’re like a story, Remy,_ she thought. _You’re like a story I’ve read before…_

But instead she laughed and said: “I’m just waiting for it all to be revealed …”

            If he still thought she was weird, he didn’t say it, even if he would have really meant it this time.  She didn’t mind.  She even thought he might understand her, this sense of déjà vu, the strange certainty that somehow, somewhere, there was a story out there already that was written about the both of them.  Maybe it was the future.  She hoped so.

            “Why do you still wear it?” she suddenly asked him outright, looking at the ring on his finger.  He shrugged.

            “For a lot of reasons.  Because I love my daughter.  Because a part of me still loves my wife, I guess.” He paused. “You ever been married?”

            She laughed. “Nope.”

            “In love?”

            “Halfway, more than half a dozen times.” ( _Except for this time…_ )

            “Then I guess you wouldn’t understand.”

            Up till now the book in her lap had been quite forgotten, until suddenly a butterfly fluttered past and decided it would make a good landing strip.  Without even an inkling of hesitation it alighted on the middle of her open page, flexed its green and blue wings once, twice, and then came to a perfect standstill.  She smiled and held the open book like a chalice that contained something sacred.

            “Can I ask you something, Remy?” she half whispered, not wanting to jar the butterfly from its rest.

            “Sure.”

            “Why did you leave me your business card that first day, in the café?”

            For a moment he said nothing and she waited in the growing twilight under the fountain’s starry canopy.

            “Because if I hadn’t,” he replied at last, teasingly, a small smile on his lips, “this story wouldn’t have got to play itself out, would it?”

            She returned the smile, directed it at her book because she was afraid that if she smiled at him she might have to throw a kiss in too.  The butterfly suddenly took off, and, making up her mind, she scribbled her number on the corner of the page and tore it off.

            “Here’s my number,” she said, handing him the small slip of paper. “Call me when you have the next chapter of your life figured.”

-oOo-

            Over the following days, weeks and months her phone stayed silent, but she didn’t mind all that much.  She knew as well as anyone that sometimes the right time and the right place aren’t enough.  Sometimes you just have to be ready to take that leap of faith.  And she could wait for that.  She could wait for him to figure it out.

            Living off book royalties was sadly not enough.  Since finances were tight, she took on full-time work at her office in the City; she dated her boss for three weeks and almost immediately regretted it.  The next week she quit her job and went onto one with a slightly better salary.  Still her new manuscript remained unfinished, an untitled file on her cluttered Windows desktop.

 

            On Valentine’s Day she received a bunch of red roses that had been forwarded to her from her old publishers.  The card was left unsigned but it could only have been from him.  It was the first bunch of flowers she’d ever received in her life.  She shook her head and laughed at his nerve, but tempted though she was she didn’t call him.  This time he was the one with everything to lose.  She felt that very acutely, like it was something out of the ordinary for him.  She didn’t know why she had that feeling, but then, she didn’t really know a lot when it came to him, and especially not when it came to the both of them.  She knew enough though, and she knew more than she thought she did, and somehow that was very unnerving.  Because she saw him in just about everything she said and everything she did.  She saw him in cups of coffee and blood red roses and birds and butterflies and she didn’t know why.

            She heard him in the wind and the tides and in every word she wrote.  He began to colour her life in small, silly ways that made her wonder that she knew enough about him to fall in love with him, when she hadn’t even so much as touched him yet.

 

            In the end he called her on a Wednesday, whilst she was at work.

            The cell buzzed beside her on her desk and she picked it up without even thinking.

            When he spoke, his voice sounded weary, fraught, depressed… but he made a date for the weekend without any preliminaries, without any explanations.  So they met on the beach on the Saturday, and he greeted her with a thin smile that said more than words.

            “I’m a single man, Anna,” was his greeting, and then an apology: “Sorry I didn’t call earlier.  Was all tied up.”

            She gave him the best reassurances she could find for a situation she didn’t fully understand, and they walked on in silence for a while as the tide receded and the seagulls cawed and the cold, northerly breeze tugged at their coats and whipped at their hair.

            “Belle got custody,” he explained at last, picking up a pebble and feeling the weight of it in his hand. “Of Raven, I mean.  I get to see her weekends.  I don’t know what it’s like for other men when they face the same situation.  I mean, maybe they’re glad to be rid of the responsibility.  I dunno.  But it’s funny, isn’t it?  How strangers can have the right to decide how many precious hours a week you get to spend with your own flesh and blood.” He paused, threw the pebble into the water.  It skimmed the surface three times before sinking into the murky depths.  He walked on. “She’s with her grandparents right now.  Won’t go near me, nor Belle neither.  It’ll take her time, won’t it?  To get used to the idea that she has to divide herself between the two of us.”

            “I’m sorry,” was all she could say.  He looked at her in a peculiar mixture of resentment and sorrow and curiosity.

            “Are you?” he asked outright.

            “Yes,” she replied, and she thought it was the truth.

            He stopped and slipped off the ring that was still on his finger.

            “You kept on asking me why I didn’t take it off,” he murmured. “Even if you didn’t say it out loud, you said it with your eyes, Anna.  And I guess I was just waiting for this moment.  When I wasn’t a husband anymore, or even a father.  I’m just a guy now, Anna.  I’m just a man.”

            “That’s a good enough place to start,” she told him.

           He didn’t look at her.  He nodded imperceptibly, turned the golden band between his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully.

            “It’ll have to be.”

            Without a second thought he stepped away from her and threw the ring into the water as he had done the pebble before.  It didn’t even skim the water.  In a second the waves had swallowed it up.  She stood a little way behind him with her heart in her mouth.  Oddly, she didn’t feel guilty as she watched him.  Nor did she feel selfish.  In a strange way, she felt as if she were reclaiming what was already hers.  He stared at the sea for a long moment before turning back to her and walking on.

            “You were right,” he said, a little of the old wryness coming back to his voice. “None of this is new. Everything exists already.  I needed you to help me make a decision I guess I’d already really made.  When we bumped into each other outside the Starbucks, when I looked at you – don’t ask me how – I knew you were the push I needed to make me stay or go.  _That’s_ why I left my card with you.  I needed you to call me.  I needed you to get me this far.”

            She said nothing, but took his arm instead; he didn’t resist, and they walked together along the windswept beach.

            “Do you ever get the feeling, Anna,” he spoke up quietly after a few minutes of silence, “that you’ve been here before?”

            She thought of the sea and the tides and the wind on their faces.  She thought of the dream she had, of that great crystal river flowing into infinity and far, far beyond.

            She nodded.

            “All the time,” she confessed, and they walked on in silence.

-oOo-

            When you’re a child, time lasts forever.  As you get older it speeds up, races away, and the best you can do is try to keep up.

            Time is always there, and all that really matters is transportation through it.  We all experience Time differently; every minute of our lives we prove to ourselves that Time is not linear, that it is variable, enveloping and infinite.

            Sometimes, we even have a sense of looking at ourselves from a standpoint _outside_ of ourselves – in the slow time of panic, or grave danger.  We see ourselves branching out into a future we are about to claim or leave behind forever; we see ourselves in the present future (the future that _will_ happen), or in the future past (the future that _won’t_ ).

            Perhaps that’s what she felt, when she sat at her laptop and stared out the window at the cityscape before her, wishing she could call him but unable to because he was in London on business.  She felt the slowness of time in her skin and her gut and her bones; she felt as if she were watching herself split off from an existence that was once exclusively _hers_ , and into one that was now exclusively _theirs._   She thought of a rainy Monday lunchtime, the moment when it had all happened, and the way they had collided, in more ways than one; and how, without knowing, had claimed their future together.

-oOo-

            He came to her place the following Friday, after work, for the first time.

            He had been sorting out the visiting arrangements with his ex-wife, he was still distracted and downcast and tired; and even when he said barely a word to her, she found herself brave enough not to be discouraged.

            He threw his coat and his briefcase on her armchair and threw himself onto the couch like it was his bed.  She made him a coffee in silence, not certain how to begin, knowing that he was just as uncertain as she was.  Knowing, equally, that all the both of them really wanted was to get this over and done with and just _begin_.

            She placed his drink on the coffee table and sat down next to him.  She eased his shoes off and he rubbed his face and said: “Gotta pick Raven up early tomorrow mornin’.  Maybe I should call it a night…”

            “Maybe you should stay here and talk,” she suggested quietly, awkwardly, placing his shoes aside.  He laughed, a small, tired laugh.

            “All we do is sit around and talk.” He eyed her curiously, added: “Why is that, Anna?  I’m not usually like this around women.  I don’t usually talk at all.  You walk into my life and all I’ve wanted to do from day one is make love to you.  Why do we just sit around and talk?”

            Knowing for sure what she’d known all along didn’t make it any less pleasant to hear when it was from his mouth.

            “I don’t know,” she said, looking away from him, feeling exposed and yet strangely exhilarated at his words. “Maybe we’re just waiting for something,” she finished decidedly.

            “What are _you_ waiting for?”

            She shrugged. “To know whether this is right?”

            “So this doesn’t _feel_ right?”

            She looked at him then, into the deep brown eyes staring right back up at her.  She didn’t have an answer.  Because it felt right… It felt like the rightest thing in the world and she didn’t have a clue why either of them were holding back.  Why they both could only sit there and stare at one another as if bewildered that they _were_ so completely _right_.

            On an impulse she reached out and touched his face, unable to believe she hadn’t yet; and when she did the tension went out of him, he closed his eyes and relaxed. For a long while he let her trace out the lines of his face without questions, and she realised this was him bringing the barriers down, letting her see the real him.  The thought almost scared her and she backed away; but he caught her by the wrist, opened his eyes, looked right at her and said: “Don’t go yet, Anna.”

            She couldn’t say no.  She let him place her palm back against his cheek, and for a while all they did was gaze at each other before he said suddenly, softly, “I dream about you, Anna.”

            She held her breath, thinking of her own dream, the one that wouldn’t end, and whispered, “Do you?”

            She thought he might close up out of embarrassment or reticence, but he nodded, answered, “Yes.”

            There was a long quiet, and he looked away, words on the tip of his tongue, trying to get them out.

            “We’re in this room,” he finally spoke, his eyes on hers again, “a golden room…and it’s moving, it’s like it’s alive.  I’m standing there, and you have your hand on my shoulder, it’s like you’re saying something to me that I don’t remember…  And I can’t see you, I never see your face, but I know it’s you, Anna, I can feel you.  And then I walk forward.  Into the wall.  It’s like it’s swallowing me up, and you’re still behind me but you don’t follow and I don’t look back.  I don’t look back and I feel as if the world is ending…” He said this almost all on a breath, and he paused, catching it back at last, saying: “When I wake up, I think, if I had to walk away from you like that in real life, I think it would kill me.  Is that crazy, Anna?  Is it crazy to feel this crazy about someone you barely know?”

            She didn’t know the answer to _that_ either – only that if it was so then they were both wonderfully, beautifully crazy.  Instead she leaned in towards him and whispered: “I think I’m goin’ to kiss you now, Remy LeBeau.”

            And she did.

            And that was all either of them had really been waiting for.

-oOo-

            Morning came and though she woke to a cold and empty space where he’d been lying beside her, she smiled when she saw the note on his pillow that read: _Call me_.  No number this time – though that was still pinned up somewhere on her board anyhow.

            She got up and stretched and showered and she thought of him holding a little girl’s hand and flying kites out in the park.

            She thought of his smiles and his touches and his kisses and hoped she would never have to be without them again.

 

            Later she ate breakfast and munched on toast as she booted up her laptop and opened the untitled file on her Windows desktop.

            She was finally ready to begin it.  Their story.

 

            She sat down, slipped on her glasses, and with a smile on her face she started to type.

-oOo-

 

_And back to the beginning again..._

_Thank you all for reading, reviewing and enjoying! x_


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